Amazon Daily

First-time novelist Darin Bradley, guestblogging on Omnivoracious this week, has published short fiction, poetry, and critical nonfiction have appeared in a variety of journals. He also served as founding fiction editor of the experimental e-zine, Farrago's Wainscot.

Noise takes as its premise that, in the aftermath of the switch from analog to digital TV, an anarchic movement known as Salvage hijacks the unused airwaves. Mixed in with the static’s random noise are dire warnings of the imminent economic, political, and social collapse of civilization—and cold-blooded lessons on how to survive the fall and prosper in the harsh new order that will inevitably arise from the ashes of the old. Critically acclaimed writer Paul Jessup has called Noise "Little Brother meets Lord of the Flies meets Heart of Darkness meets Mad Max and the Road Warrior meets Letham."

This is Bradley's last post for Omni--you can read his previous posts here and here. Thanks, Darin!

   

So, in my last post, I talked a bit about Noise, the CTB, Salvage Country, and the mishmash of videos, audio clips, and images that make up the whole meta-content that accompanies Noise. Sometimes, blinky moving things are worth a thousand blog posts, so here's a small selection for your media pleasure. Thanks for reading this week.

"The First Broadcast"--an example of one of the many ways Salvage warns itself about what's to come in Noise.
A recording of me reading the first chapter of the novel. Be sure to listen with your security blanket close at hand.

 

This is just an example of one of the many ways Salvagers use graffiti to get themselves ready for the Collapse.

 

A still-shot of a short wave television broadcast, Salvage-style. Imagine catching this late one night while suffering from insomnia . . .

Noise, by Darin Bradley--teaser trailer #3 from Darin Bradley on Vimeo.

Another example of Salvage at work--this one's been re-mixed, but you can imagine the original message wasn't very friendly.

There's plenty more of this at Salvage Country. Some of them are creepy, so it's probably best if you watch/listen/click at home and not at work.

 

[Ed: Since we spoke to him last, Gary Shteyngart has been fully immersing himself in the social media that his novel Super Sad True Love Story makes so horribly and amusingly disturbing, with regular (often dachshund-themed) Facebook updates about his book tour. He recently sent us a note which we pass on to you below.]

OMG, I just got back from the West Coast part of my tour and I’m sad to say: reading isn’t dead. Darn it!! I just wrote a book predicting the death of literature and here I go out into the world and hordes of people actually show up at my readings. Not just people, mind you. San Diegoans!

Some authors don’t like touring, but it’s so hard not to love my readers who I think (and I’m biased here) are the cutest, coolest, funniest people out there. They email my agent saying “Um, is it okay if I bring a Kindle for the author to sign?” Is it ever! I’ll sign freaking anything. What I really would love is for people to bring a dachshund, because my best friend is a weenie dog and I really miss him when I’m on the road. There was actually this guy at one of my readings who had this big long torso, stubby little legs, and the wettest brown eyes I’ve ever seen and I just kept turning back to him the whole reading and picturing him on all fours asking for a turkey treat. Sigh. Amazon should consider a rent-a-weenie program in select cities. It does get lonely out there on the road.

But not too lonely! Because people always cry out the strangest things. Elderly Russian woman at West Coast reading: “Do you know zey are killing Jews at San Francisco State University?”

Incredulous author: “I didn’t…Oh, my…Really?”

Russian Woman: “Yes, zey are vishoos anti-Semites!”

Author: “Well, I’m a vicious Semite!”

Later at the signing the woman hovers over me and when the last person leaves says, “You know, you’re not a bad writer, but you need to have children. Then you won’t be a child yourself. Look at Ayn Rand. Great writer, but never had children.” Point taken, ma’am. Shteyngart Shrugged.

It's the classic conundrum of every character actor: you know the face, but can't place the name. In the case of Danny Trejo, however, it's a face that's truly unforgettable, and a name that's top-billed in one of the most highly anticipated movies of the summer - Machete, Robert Rodriguez's high-octane tribute to action and exploitation movies of the 1970s. The film, which opens September 3, is Trejo's first leading role in a career that spans over two decades, and began in a place even rougher than Hollywood: San Quentin State Prison.

As detailed in the 2007 documentary Champion, Trejo had planned to become a boxer, but a spate of crimes and drug charges landed him in prison in the early 1980s. The experience helped him to turn his life around, becoming not only a California state prison boxing champ, but a 12-step program member that helped introduce him to the movie business. A friend in recovery hired him as an extra in the 1985 film Runaway Train; its screenwriter, fellow ex-con Edward Bunker (Reservoir Dogs), remembered Trejo and hired him to train Eric Roberts for his boxing scenes. Director Andrei Konchalevsky eventually cast him as Roberts' sparring partner. 

Trejo's sinewy frame - highlighted by a tattoo of a woman in a sombrero that sprawls across his entire chest - and icy gaze made him a natural for bit and character parts that required unquestionable toughness and violence, and he essayed all manner of crooks, cons and gangsters in projects ranging from Mi Vida Loca (1993) and Marked for Death (1990) to episodes of "Baywatch." He became a staple of Robert Rodriguez's films after 1995's Desperado; Rodriguez was among the first directors to cast Trejo outside of his traditional roles by tapping him to play Isador "Machete" Cortez, the proud inventor uncle of Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara in Spy Kids(2001). He repeated the role, who eventually grew more comic, in the two sequels, and played an entirely different Machete in a faux trailer of the same name in Grindhouse (2007). It's this Machete that takes center stage in the new film, which features a genuinely eclectic cast that Robert De Niro, Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Alba, Cheech Marin and Steven Seagal.

 

 

Like all character actors, Trejo worked in everything from low-budget, direct-to-video titles to major Hollywood features and everything in between, so a "best-of" list will be entirely dependent on one's tastes. Some viewers may only go for work with Rodriguez, which includes all three From Dusk Till Dawn movies and Once Upon a Time in Mexico, or want to see only his turns as a Stone Cold Baddie in pics like Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects (as bounty hunter Rondo) or the more recent Predators (as an ill-fated Mexican drug cartel gunman). However, some of Trejo's best work is in roles where he tempers his granite facade with a touch of humor, as in Once Upon a Time in Mexico - watch his stone-faced reaction to Johnny Depp's "Are you a Mexican or a Mexi-can't?" - or a degree of ruefulness, like in the little-seen prison drama Animal Factory (penned by Bunker) or even Rob Zombie's Halloween (as a mental hospital worker who takes pity on Michael Myers). And though it's not a good film by any means, the scene in Delta Farce in which his gang leader - named Carlos Santana - tears enthusiastically through a karoake version of "I Will Survive" shows a dedication to his craft that few other actors would have the stones to display on-screen. Viva Danny Trejo! -- Paul Gaita

 

 

You be the judge: The Guardian has not let the fact that they think the Booker judges have done a decent job with their longlist this year--"Disappointingly, nearly all the books appear to be interesting"--stop them from organizing once again their alternative discussion group/award (if the prize of a Guardian mug counts as an award), the Not the Booker Prize 2010. Send in your nominations in the comments field during the next week. (P.S. You can find two of the longlisters for the real prize, Emma Donoghue's Room and Paul Murray's Skippy Dies, on our Best Books of September list, just revealed today. But our spotlight pick for the month, Scarlett Thomas's charming and subtly philosophical Our Tragic Universe, didn't make the Booker cut, so I'm going to go over to the Guardian and nominate it myself. Maud likes it too so far.)

Google is people!: A week before the release of Zero History, the last novel in his latest loose trilogy (which includes some of the most fascinating fiction of the last decade, to my eyes), William Gibson takes to the NYT op-ed page to reckon with an artificial intelligence we never dreamed of, one that, like Soylent Green, is [SPOILER!] made of people:

Google is not ours. Which feels confusing, because we are its unpaid content-providers, in one way or another. We generate product for Google, our every search a minuscule contribution. Google is made of us, a sort of coral reef of human minds and their products.

Stay tuned on Omni for our podcast with Mr. Gibson soon.

"We hope it's all going into the books": Laura Lippman sat down with the equally fabulous Craig Ferguson last night to talk about I'd Know You Anywhere and, among other things, revealed herself to be a psychologist-tested sociopath. Not long after, Ferguson called crime writers "undertaker-weird." Enjoy:

Moving and shaking: It's a little like Beethoven composing symphonies after he lost his hearing, but Roger Ebert, unable to eat for years now after cancer surgery on his jaw, is publishing a cookbook this month, The Pot and How to Use It: The Mystery and Romance of the Rice Cooker, based on a popular blog post about his favorite kitchen appliance. An NYT profile yesterday has pushed The Pot near the top of today's Movers & Shakers.

--Tom

Steve Jobs and crew are going to be pulling some rabbits out of their hats today--new iPods, most likely a new Apple TV with some subscription/streaming service, and possibly announcing availability for iOS 4 for the iPad--and we'll be wrapping things up later this afternoon. If you have time, you can check out the live stream of the event (which TUAW notes will be stress-testing Apple's new North Carolina-based data center) from Apple's site. However... you have to be running the Safari web browser on an Intel-based Mac or on an iOS 3.0-minimum device (i.e., iPhone, iPad, iPod touch).

For those of you not possessing the magical components listed above, check out the real-time stream of Apple-y goodness from some of my fave liveblogging sources:

• iLounge
• Ars Technica
• Engadget
• Gizmodo
• Macworld
• MacLife

We'll see you on the other side later this afternoon.

[UPDATE] The Apple streaming video link is live now.

--Agen G.N. Schmitz

First-time novelist Darin Bradley, guestblogging on Omnivoracious this week, has taught courses on writing and literature at the University of North Texas, Furman University, and East Tennessee State University. His short fiction, poetry, and critical nonfiction have appeared in a variety of journals, and he served as founding fiction editor of the experimental e-zine, Farrago's Wainscot.

Noise takes as its premise that, in the aftermath of the switch from analog to digital TV, an anarchic movement known as Salvage hijacks the unused airwaves. Mixed in with the static’s random noise are dire warnings of the imminent economic, political, and social collapse of civilization—and cold-blooded lessons on how to survive the fall and prosper in the harsh new order that will inevitably arise from the ashes of the old. Critically acclaimed writer Paul Jessup has called Noise "Little Brother meets Lord of the Flies meets Heart of Darkness meets Mad Max and the Road Warrior meets Letham."

Bradley returns on Thursday with a new post...

   

A central idea in Noise (the central idea, really) is that after the general broadcasting switch from analog to digital in 2009, government agencies eventually surrendered some of the now-unused bands over for public use. A fair portion of these bands were reserved to establish a Nationwide Public Safety Network to better network first responders, emergency personnel, and the police--in the event of an emergency. (This is true both in real life and in the novel). The novel's idea that the bands were surrendered to public use (my fictional "Citizens' Television Band") is pure fiction. The reality is that (some believe) there was money involved..

So, issues of conspiracy aside, the Citizens' Television Band (CTB) became one of the main actants in the story. This devil-may-care, net-neutrality-esque broadcasting environment gave rise to the movement known as Salvage, which is the amorphous counter-cultural movement that predicts the collapse of society before it happens. Omni's own Jeff VanderMeer explains it pretty well in this clip: