When Lake Superior State University releases its Annual List of Words and Phrases Banished From the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use, and General Uselessness, I listen.  But this year, they want to take away the intrinsic pleasure I get from saying "Brangelina" and "Vaughniston" (may the latter rest in peace).  Banning combined celebrity names--pshaw! Among the other words on the list:

 

GITMO

COMBINED CELEBRITY NAMES (c.f. Brangelina, TomKat)

AWESOME

GONE/WENT MISSING

PWN or PWNED

NOW PLAYING IN THEATERS

WE'RE PREGNANT

UNDOCUMENTED ALIEN

ARMED ROBBERY/DRUG DEAL GONE BAD

TRUTHINESS

ASK YOUR DOCTOR

CHIPOTLE

i-ANYTHING

SEARCH

HEALTHY FOOD

BOASTS

 

Ah, yes, let's do ban "healthy food" from our vocab.  This seems like a wise idea.   On the other hand, I am, for some reason, completely on board with the banning of "Chipotle." Go figure.  NPR.org has the interview with the man behind the list, John Shibley.

In this interview for NPR, Dave Barry talks about his new book, The Shepherd, the Angel and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog, and reads an excerpt.  Dave Barry has been making me laugh since I was ten.

From NPR's Fresh Air: an interview in which Terry Gross talks with Jonathan Franzen about his new memoir, The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History.  Among the issues discussed in the the interview: the objects he chose to walk away with from his mother's house after packing it up after her death (first and foremost: an onyx banana), Franzen's embarrassment over the fact that he was happy in high school, and the important role that religion plays in The Discomfort Zone.    Listen to the interview, as well as Franzen reading a small excerpt from the memoir, here.

To follow up Casey's entry on monsters:  an interview by Richard Parks from the latest issue of Oxford American entitled "Ode to a Monster Hunter." 

Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, sits down with Sycamore Managing Editor Emeritus Barney Haney to have a good, long talk about his writing, James Frey, being "kidnapped" in East Africa, and who would play him in the movie version of ABNISC.  This interview is just one of the four great interviews (Nick Hornby, Denise Duhamel, Jefferson Hayman) appearing in issue 18.2, which is on sale right now.  If you've already subscribed, it's in the mail as we speak.

Click here to read Another Bullshit Night in Indiana: An Interview with Nick Flynn 

Sonia Greenfield's In Discovery Park snaps effortlessly between an outside, serene, natural world, and an interior world characterized by insecurity and dread.  While these turns are impressive technically (and typographically: they are almost shoved off the page), most of all I think they speak to a certain tendency of the mind to simultaneously ignore and obsess over the same thing.  It is a beautiful, sad poem, and we hope you will enjoy it.

We're also putting up our interview with Sycamore favorite Denise Duhamel.  Denise has appeared in SR before, most recently in issue 18.1.  She was kind enough to sit down with Cody Lumpkin and Denise Duhamel Fan Club president, Leslie St. John, after coming to read at Purdue earlier this year.  If you haven't read Denise's Kinky, I strongly suggest that you do so immediately.  Now.  Also, check out Denise's poem from the last issue of SR, in which Paul McCartney tries to explain the genesis of Help!

Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity, About a Boy, and most recently A Long Way Down, sits down with Sycamore's own Sarah Layden to discuss writing and the distinction between the popular and the literary.  He's rather insightful on the subject, and says some interesting things to say about The Da Vinci Code:

I was trying to write an essay before I came away which was in part about a history of The Da Vinci Code and its reception. It seems to have gotten a lot worse as (Dan Brown’s) sales have gotten into the billions. In 2004, I was finding writers in smart broadsheets recommending the book. Kind of as a guilty pleasure, but still, you know, ‘This is unputdownable, blah blah blah,’ and then two years later, 'it’s kind of for morons' and, 'what’s wrong with the world that all of these people are reading The Da Vinci Code and not this book?'  

One of the joys of working for a literary magazine is the opportunity to benefit from the generosity of your favorite authors.  We hope you enjoy Is This Normal?: An Interview with Nick Hornby.