Katie’s new novel THE WENTWORTHS has hit the LA Times Bestseller List amdist a flurry of media interest and successful readings.  Plus, a major film deal has been signed.  More news coming soon.

Katie’s off soon to a triumphant party in NYC while sales continue to build.

Saknussemm and Evil Steve, the mad music genius of Houston, took out First Prize in the Missouri Review’s Audio Competition for the best 10 Minute Play. The work entitled “The Memory Wound” is taken from Saknussemm’s novel PRIVATE MIDNIGHT, due out from Overlook Press next year.

Katie’s second novel THE WENTWORTHS is in bookstores now and receiving rave reviews, including major coverage in The Los Angeles Times. “Hilariously inappropriate behavior.”

If weird sex, subversive comedy and the spectacle of obnoxious rich people having to find their humanity appeals, you’ll dig it.

Readers who value books as artistic objets should take note that prices for signed first edition hardbacks are quite buoyant and even on the rise.  In discussions with sellers of rare books, we discovered a signed first edition of John Kennedy Toole’s legendary novel A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES (published in 1980, long after the author’s suicide, with a brilliant foreword by Walker Percy) is now worth between $4,000 and $5,000, while the major works by Kerouac have dramatially risen in value.  Continued escalations in prices commanded are expected.

Congratulations to Rudy Rucker for Another Mutant Gem

For anyone who doesn’t know the writing of Rudy Rucker, we can only ask, where have you been? A visionary imagination combined with true scientific understanding is a great start, and has been Rucker’s hallmark for his entire career. But equally important is his sense of playfulness and warmth of humanity-elements that are often missing in even the most inspired works of forward looking speculative fiction. The whole heartfelt Rucker mind is at work in his new novel Postsingular - and it’s as freewheeling, horizon-headed and chaotically readable as anything in his oeuvre. It’s no wonder that he occupies a unique position in American and indeed world writing. This is one of the few authors at work today who just keeps getting younger, fresher, weirder, better.

Lessing is More

While the congratulations were flowing around Doris Lessing for winning the Nobel Prize (and bless her grumpy old heart, she didn’t seem to give a hoot), not much mention was made of the fact that the recognition wasn’t only significant because of her gender, but more importantly because of the nature of her writing. For the first time, science fiction, speculative fiction-a future looking approach to the imaginative and fantastic–was given a hint of the respect it deserves. We’ll cheer even more heartily when Margaret Atwood is so honored

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Love Machines

Further proof (as if we need it) that the kind of world depicted in the bourgeois novel is long dead and that “realism” is a concept best deployed with a very lateral sense of hysterical disbelief, joy and horror…can be found at every turn. And yet, strangely, the “future” once you accept that it’s all around, looks so oddly familiar…like so many myths, legends, fairytales and entertainments of the past.For instance, consider David Levy’s book Love and Sex with Robots.There’s also the emerging trend of exposing the segment of the population most accepting of novelty, namely children, to alternative forms of “playmates“.Again, an age-old theme. One wonders if the emergence of these themes out of the minds and pages of the past and into the classrooms and apparently soon to be bedrooms of at least the developed nations is a sign of the fulfillment of our luminous potential-or another and rather tragic sign of our essential loneliness and tendency toward the silly and the perverse? (Which excites us no end!) The luminous or the ludicrous? The question older than any book.

PS.The following is taken from an entry in the LiveScience pages of the MSNBC site on Technology and Science:“Levy predicts Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize human-robot marriage. “˜Massachusetts is more liberal than most other jurisdictions in the United States and has been at the forefront of same-sex marriage,’ Levy said. “There’s also a lot of high-tech research there at places like MIT.”“Although roboticist Ronald Arkin at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta does not think human-robot marriages will be legal anywhere by 2050, ‘anything’s possible. And just because it’s not legal doesn’t mean people won’t try it,’ he told LiveScience.“Humans are very unusual creatures, Arkin said. “If you ask me if every human will want to marry a robot, my answer is probably not. But will there be a subset of people? There are people ready right now to marry sex toys.” (Fancy anyone thinking humans were unusual creatures! We’re now in negotiations to develop an Ask Ron Arkin segment to be regularly included on 2 Fork Hwy.)

Saknussemm Actually Likes Spam

Listen and find out why

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Forget the Robots, What About the Psychologists and the Monkeys?

The following is taken from an article in the New York Times by John Tierney. See if you can work out what’s going…or more importantly…why.”For half a century, social psychologists have been trying to figure out the human gift for rationalizing irrational behavior. Why did we evolve with brains that salute our shrewdness for buying the neon yellow car with bad gas mileage? The brain keeps sending one message - Yesss! Genius! - while our friends and family are saying,’Well…’”This self-delusion, the result of what’s called cognitive dissonance, has been demonstrated over and over by researchers who have come up with increasingly elaborate explanations for it. Psychologists have suggested we hone our skills of rationalization in order to impress others, reaffirm our’moral integrity’ and protect our ’self-concept’ and feeling of ‘global self-worth.’”If so, capuchin monkeys are a lot more complicated than we thought. Or, we’re less complicated. In a paper in Psychological Science, researchers at Yale report finding the first evidence of cognitive dissonance in monkeys and in a group in some ways even less sophisticated, 4-year-old humans.”The Yale experiment was a variation of the classic one that first demonstrated cognitive dissonance, a term coined by the social psychologist Leon Festinger. In 1956 one of his students, Jack Brehm, carted some of his own wedding gifts into the lab (it was a low-budget experiment) and asked people to rate the desirability of things like an electric sandwich press, a desk lamp, a stopwatch and a transistor radio.”Then they were given a choice between two items they considered equally attractive, and told they could take one home. (At the end of the experiment Brehm had to confess he couldn’t really afford to give them anything, causing one woman to break down in tears.) After making a choice (but before having it snatched away), they were asked to rate all the items again.”Suddenly they had a new perspective. If they had chosen the electric sandwich press over the toaster, they raised its rating and downgraded the toaster. They convinced themselves they had made by far the right choice.So, apparently, did the children and capuchin monkeys studied at Yale by Louisa C. Egan, Laurie R. Santos and Paul Bloom. The psychologists offered the children stickers and the monkeys M&M’s.”Once a monkey was observed to show an equal preference for three colors of M&M’s - say, red, blue and green - he was given a choice between two of them. If he chose red over blue, his preference changed and he downgraded blue. When he was subsequently given a choice between blue and green, it was no longer an even contest - he was now much more likely to reject the blue.”The monkey seemed to be coping the same way humans do. When you reject the toaster, you could spend a lot of time second-guessing yourself, and that phenomenon, much less common, is called buyer’s remorse.”Really? (We wonder what happened when the monkeys were offered the electric sandwich press.) How does this kind of thing happen in the name of science? Surely this is Dadaism reborn.

Who’s Monitoring the Experimenters?

In still more news about perplexing experiments, Alex Boese, the conservator of the online Museum of Hoaxes , a site we like, is also an author we enjoy, and his latest book Elephants on Acid and Other Bizarre Experiments will have you laughing uncontrollably-or becoming very worried.On a less humorous note, we might point out that Alex’s list doesn’t include such genuinely borderline experiments as Starfish Prime . More detailed and professionally verified reports on this initiative repay the effort.#10 on Boese’s list references Dr. Ewen Cameron’s experiments in “beneficial brainwashing”…which were rather more ominously a part of Project Bluebird . For further references and an interesting bibliography, check out this site devoted to Bluebird.

The Cure for Stupidity?

One of the nagging problems the champions of evolutionary theory face (and continuously try to sidestep) is the persistence and arguably the increase in stupidity (not to be confused with an absence of wisdom, or even common sense, basic greed, grandiose delusions, selfish ambition, or simply the kind of reckless who-gives-a-shit attitude synonymous with American society). On an individual basis, it’s hard to see any evolutionary benefit. But on a species basis, the answer is clear. Stupidity, as in deficient intelligence within individuals, acts as an overall culture brake on so-called “progress” (occasionally to be confused with an absence of wisdom, or even common sense, basic greed, grandiose delusions, selfish ambition, or simply the kind of reckless who-gives-a-shit attitude synonymous with American society). Now, however, this humble but effective means of slowing down the integration of new marvels into everyday life may be the victim of yet another new marvel. James Watson, Mr. DNA says in New Scientist that stupidity should be cured. Stand by.

The Verdict On Pynchon’s Against the Day

One word will suffice. “Stupendous.” This is a book worthy of its page length by someone worth meeting-certainly worth reading. For all the fat books, for all the pretenders and wannabes…this is the real deal.

David Mamet’s Praise for The Wentworths

Katie’s second novel is due out from Overlook Press in March ‘08. David Mamet’s review: “Too funny, too true, too sad, and too short.”

Twin City Theater News

Congratulations to 2 Fork friend Dominic Orlando on the dramatic success of his recent dramatic work, A Short Play About Globalization, which was presented by the Workhaus Collective to rave reviews. Workhaus is a relatively new collaboration of nationally produced playwrights based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. For more info and a link to Workhaus, see the Forks in Our Road section.Lucky Dube

Not So Lucky

Reggae and world music lost a great figure in October when Lucky Dube was murdered in Johannesburg. If you haven’t heard of him, you should listen. He recorded 22 albums-in English, Zulu and Afrikaans-and also appeared in several films. For those who know his music, he will be greatly missed. Sadly, winning Rugby’s World Cup hasn’t made South Africa any less violent.

From Porn for Plants to Miracles for Needy Deities

Conceptual artist, novelist, fabulist, critic and professional eccentric Jonathon Keats is someone whose peculiar thinking we derive great enjoyment from–and we’ll be featuring an interview with this artistic maverick in the coming months. Fresh from the success of a cinematic venture aimed at providing erotic stimulation for a neglected segment of the world ecosystem, Mr. Keats currently has an exhibit in progress at the innovative Modernism Gallery in San Francisco entitled Miracle Works. Check it out.

Death is the Norm, Even for the Legendary

Ave Norman Mailer. The Tough Guy may have morphed into a gnomish, besweatered figure in later years. But he remained feisty, prolific and a bridge back to the days when writing really mattered. For whatever you think of his work and what his long term legacy will be, he brought a Mickey Rourke kind of pavement level reality to bellicose letters-and reminds us all that if you don’t like what someone says or thinks, you don’t have to write an Opinion piece for the New York Times. You can always just take a swing at them! Maybe if there were more brawls at writer’s conferences and readings…or imagine the art of dueling brought back to occasions like Breadloaf. No William T. Vollman starter’s pistol, but the crack of a real 9 mm stirring the summer Vermont air…

Paramount Sniffing Around The Wentworths

Why is Katie laughing? See her blog about the up’s and down’s of bringing her novel Chemical Pink to the big screen in Katie Forks Hollywood.

Zanesville Pronounced Unfilmable

Booklist described Saknussemm’s novel Zanesville as “brilliant black comedy” and dubbed it “one of the most creative, edgy and entertaining novels SF has spawned in a decade.” This hasn’t kept it from being named one of the most unfilmable novels of all time.

The Problem Simply Put

In a recent issue of the ever-excellent BOMB magazine, novelist David Malouf, one of our faves, and certainly the finest Australian writer alive, made the comment, “I used to say that it was good to have three or four books under your belt before anyone knew you were there. You can’t do that these days because if no one knows you’re there after three or four books, you’re nowhere!” Nuff said. For info on another and very much neglected Australian writer worthy of far more attention, check out Trevor Shearston, who writes with great poignancy and power about the mysterious realm of Papua New Guinea.

For Anyone Interested in Language, i.e. (not e.g.) the set of all human beings

A site to be aware of as an on-going reference (and recreation) is the LinguistList. It’s inexhaustible-and just plain interesting.

The Vigor of Toronto

In addition to a host of fascinating artists and thinkers (like Steve Mann, the wearable computing / cyborg pioneer) Toronto is home to one of our favorite publishers, the always-surprising Coach House Books. Amongst many engaging writers, their list includes the works of Christian Bok. Check them out if you don’t know of them. And if you do, keep spreading the word.