Saturday 7/17/21
I don't really have time to do this, so I'm going to be fast, fast, fast. There was an essay in The Smart Set that I wrote on Babe Ruth and the best season anyone in baseball has ever had. And also Ruth's underrated brain. Today I had to add something to an essay on one of the first female movie producers, in Joan Harrison, for The Smart Set. I'll write a piece on Sam Cooke for The Wall Street Journal. I have a new short story in Aethlon, called "Captains' Practice." Some place in Maine will publish a story called "Bird Skulls," but they quoted me a lower fee than they should have, so I don't know what is happening there. I'll write about Edith Wharton for the TLS. I spoke to the NY Library people today about giving a talk on my Sam Cooke book. BOMB will publish fiction. I don't know what story yet. This woman is sane, and nice, and kind, and normal, and smart, and I respect her. She loves all of it. So we'll figure out something. There will be fiction any day now in Post Road. The New Yorker will look at five short stories, so I've been trying to determine what those stories should be. Essentially, I have 298 new stories going back to June 2018. From that huge pile, I've come up with a list of about twelve that I'm getting down to five. So far today, I've gone through and read--and read hard--and made some minor changes to "The Echo Blow," "Head to Give," "Eyejaculator," "Transitionings," "Coffee Streaks," "Seedless Cherries." Reading these stories, back to back to back, etc., just drives it home yet again--but more so--how deranged, sick, twisted, evil so many of these industry people are. Depraved. Morally depraved. There will be some entries on here coming about Bradford Morrow of Conjunctions that should prove eye-opening. The Coltrane/Ascension feature will be in the next issue of JazzTimes. Should have copies of Salmagundi by Monday with a new personal essay in it. The person who had not paid me the money they owed me for ten months finally did so after being threatened with exposure on this blog. I don't like to threaten people. What else? I screwed up in not seeing some emails in time about doing a piece on Paul McCartney at a high-circulation venue that would have netted me some much needed funds, so I am angry at myself about that. I need to alter the back cover copy of the upcoming Scrooge book. There are galleys for Brackets. I haven't seen one. It's not going to matter right now, because I know and have accepted there will be zero coverage of anything I do, but that is going to change. The time is coming. I don't know what exactly it will be that gets it here, but it will come. As they say, or I do, anyway, I don't have time to stop and tarry. Back to it.