Reviews of 3 OJC Releases.

[Joe]

Will it make everyone happier if I take full responsibility for Quotegate? My editing goof; apologies.

writing "workshops"... are as responsible for at least as much bad writing as Kerouac or Burroughs

Too true. Hemingway and Carver have also probably runied more writers than Faulkner and Woolf, just to pick too "modernists" who often get criticized for letting so many horses out of so many barns.

Never thought I'd see Aidan Higgins name-checked here; for those intrigued, the invaluable Dalkey Archive Press has just reprinted LANGRISHE GO DOWN. (Said publishers also keep important works by Sarraute, Butor, McElroy, Harry Mathews, Reed, Sorrentino, Stein, Mosley, Queneau, Schmidt and others in print. Check 'em out: http://www.centerforbookculture.org/dalkey/fullcatalog.html).

[RDK]

As someone who makes a living both reading and writing, I'll add that writing - creative or otherwise - is often a balance between artistry and clarity. Rules are rules, but they can (and often should) be broken. Now I love the way Clem strings his words/thoughts together - very creative, dude! - but clarity is not exactly his thing (in my humble, narrow-minded opinion at least). A mainstream music review (again, imho) should arguably err on the side of clarity, but that said I don't generally give a fuck about the technicalities of proper punctuation unless it makes reading the piece harder than it has to be.

[chris]

Too true. Hemingway and Carver have also probably runied more writers than Faulkner and Woolf, just to pick too "modernists" who often get criticized for letting so many horses out of so many barns.

Greatness-- particularly of the subtle sort-- will always spawn legions of poor imitators. That's why you see so many people trying to write like Carver or Hemingway (or Faulkner, Munro, etc) and so few people trying to juggle running chainsaws and sharpened machetes.

Doesn't explain people who try to write like Dave Eggers or David Foster Wallace though