Tyson on Tyson

Courtesy of Buzzfeed, the nine best quotations from Mike Tyson's interview with Details magazine.

My two favorites:

"You know, physically he was just a pussy." (On Che Guevara)

"My wife's lived with me in places I wouldn't take a shit in."

The man speaks his mind.

Off to Penn's Woods (Self Indulgence Alert)

I'll be away for the next three days for a trip to southeastern Pennsylvania. Opportunities are afoot.

Apatow Time

For those of you who like Judd Apatow's ouvre (and those who don't, I do not like you any more) this Vulture interview will be as good a use of ten minutes as whatever else it is that you had planned. Well, Adam Sandler has one better idea for ten minutes, but you'll have to read the interview to know what that is.

Wistful for The Wire

So I go to look at my Tivo (or whatever mine is called -- Tivo has become the Kleenex of digital tv recorders) list last night, and my reaction was almost wistful to seeing an episode of The Wire, the greatest television show ever, newly minted on the newly recorded programs. Apparently HBO is re-airing one of the old seasons, perhaps the first. I have a tirade built up about the fact that The Wire got snubbed again by Emmy voters, forever confirming in my mind that Emmy's are useless and indicative of nothing, certainly not the best that television has to offer, but I just do not have the energy or time. trust me that the bile is there, though. Recently The Guardian's Sam Delaney interviewed Dominic West, who played drunken, womanizing, profanity-spewing (God Bless him every one) Jimmy McNulty.

The Thunderstick has been pestering me to start watching Lost on dvd, and I finally got season one, but I'm not going to kid you -- I'm feeling a huge magnetized force pulling me toward Baltimore's mean streets. Fortunately I hear great things about Generation Kill, the latest project from the guys who brought us The Wire, and I'm Tivoing that as well, so perhaps David Simon & Co.'s take on Iraq will substitute for my desire to get back in the game of Bodymore, Murderland.

Nick Hornby Speaks

Over at The Atlantic's website, Jessica Murphy conducts an interview with Nick Hornby, who is one of my very favorite writers. He has a new book out, Slam, which is geared toward a young adult audience. Hornby also pens a great, quirky column in a magazine you should be reading, The Believer. And from the interview I discovered that he has a blog as well.

I read. A lot. It's sort of a professional imperative. And I love much of what I read -- scholarship, political commentary, reviews, and so forth. And yet there are certain writers whose work will always get me to stop what I am doing. Hornby is one. Chuck Klosterman is another. Both write readable, sometimes mesmerizing prose with a distinctive voice and worldview. Their work is quite removed (in many ways -- Hornby's Fever Pitch did influence Bleeding Red and I am writing a review essay in which Hornby's High Fidelity and several of Klosterman's books feature prominently) from anything I write about or teach. Some probably see them as fluff, but I don't buy that.

Accessibility should not be a bad word. Scholars in all fields (history is far from the worst) need to absorb this message. Clear, crisply written narrative history ought to be the gold standard in the field. Even for those writers whose narrative strengths do not measure up, the goal of clear, readable prose still should be foremost. Most writers could learn something about their craft from Nick Hornby.