Jeremy M. Davies

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Most Anticipated Small Press Books of 2016!

Few exceptions aside, the most compelling, challenging, absorbing literary art is being produced by small presses and their respective writers. I asked a number of writers, editors, and publishers to send me a list of small press books to look out for in 2016. Below you’ll find my own list, which is informed by Kate Angus, John Cayley, Lauren Cerand, Samuel R. Delany, Rikki Ducornet, Andrew Ervin, Lily Hoang, Sean Lovelace, Scott McClanahan, Hubert O’Hearn, Jane Unrue, and Curtis White.

Below you’ll also find lists from Jeff Bursey, Tobias Carroll, Gabino Iglesias, Janice Lee, Dawn Raffel, Nick Francis Potter, John Reed, Adam Robinson, Michael Seidlinger, Terese Svoboda, Jason Teal, Angela Woodward, and Jacob Wren. All the abovementioned people are small press heroes and great writers in their own right. My thanks to all of them.

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A David Bowie of Literature?

Is there a David Bowie of literature?—such an asinine question, as dumb as asking, “Is there a Virginia Woolf of music?”—arguing against it arguably as asinine as answering it at all, even on its own terms, which is to say, which “David Bowie”? which “literature”?; not to mention the problem of even locating a “there” with any kind of certainty, and of establishing what and/or where or whatever “Is” in this case is.

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A Guide to My Writing Here at Big Other (reposted)

It’s my three-year anniversary at Big Other, and I’m feeling nostalgic, so I thought I’d repost this guide that I made a while back for the 266 articles that I’ve posted here. It’s organized by subject, with a minimum of cross-indexing. Also, I’ve bolded what I believe to be my best posts.

Thank you for reading!

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Harry Mathews Roundtable

The Quarterly Conversation has posted a roundtable on the great Harry Mathews, including essays by Dan Visel and Ed Park  on The Conversions, Laird Hunt on My Life in CIA, John Beer on The New Tourism, Daniel Levin Becker on Selected Declarations of Dependence, and Jeremy M. Davies and myself on Cigarettes.

Enjoy!

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Dalkey Archive Press

Until I make my pilgrimage to Champaign, this realtor-walkthrough video of Dalkey Archive’s warehouse (squired by founder John O’Brien, no less!) will have to do:

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With some insight into the workings and history of Dalkey from O’Brien and Jeremy Davies.

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In Memory of Raúl Ruiz (a guest post by Jeremy M. Davies)

Raúl Ruiz (1941–2011)

These are the days that try cinephiles’ souls, and I suppose one may give one’s penchant for hyperbole a little extra elbow room on such mornings. Suffice to say that if I had a favorite living filmmaker, Ra(o)úl Ruiz was he. The only film course I’ve ever taught was on Ruiz; I’ve proselytized for him (as many long-suffering friends will report) at every opportunity. [This is true. —Adam]

The fact that his Mysteries of Lisbon was picked up for U.S. distribution by the good people at the Music Box seemed to me something of a miracle given his 100+ films’ failure to make much of a mark on American moviegoers, even when the five or six that have screened in theaters here over the last twenty years got seen, reviewed, etc. You are unlikely to see a better movie than Mysteries this year—it’s showing at Lincoln Center even now, and will be traveling west with the coming weeks. [For more on that film, see this article by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky.]

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Azazel with tail X-Men First Class

For over two weeks now, this picture’s been getting a lot of hits here at Big Other:

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364 total page views, and counting. Just the image, mind you—not an actual post. What makes this even funnier is that this JPEG never appeared in a Big Other post (well, until now). Instead, it’s a leftover from my discussion with Jeremy M. Davies about X-Men: First Class; there was at one point a part where I said something about Azazel, but it was dumb, so I cut it, and I thought that when I did, I deleted the image. I was wrong.

But since he’s here and people are eager to peer at him, let’s see if we can’t make him earn his keep…

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