From Tom Conoboy’s writing blog, an interesting comparison in writing styles; plus a rather scathing essay by Mark Twain regarding James Fenimore Cooper, called Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses.
I’ve read just about everything Cormac McCarthy has published, but none of Cooper’s work—he hasn’t been a priority and may be less so after reading the above.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 James Ament While I don’t relate to all the drug references—too square, I guess—in this piece from The Nervous Breakdown called It Takes a Lot of Cocaine to Be as Smooth as Steely Dan, I’ve been a Steely Dan fan since the early ’80s. Yeah, I know their first album hit the market in 1972, but I’ve always been slow at these things. I’ve seen them live, own some old LP’s, a bunch of CD’s, and listen to their old stuff regularly. I try to play some of their complicated songs on my guitar. I even named a grulla appaloosa horse Steely Dan in my soon-to-be-published novel. The article states:
Becker and Fagen are known primarily for two things: Bitter, sarcastic lyrics that glorify the bebop hipster of yore and a maniacal attention to studio perfectionism.
The albums Gaucho and Aja are pretty fantastic representations of this cool jazz-rock perfection.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 James Ament 
follow: RSS