CHABON PONDERS HDTV'S WISDOM
Wednesday, December 21, 2005, 4:46 PM ET
Source: MichaelChabon.Com

Readers who didn't pick up November's Details now have a second chance to read the second edition of Michael Chabon's monthly column. In "The Boys in Glow," posted on his website today, Chabon gets nostalgic over the days of five television channels and bad reception.

The lack of variety, the interminable series of identical Sundays that induced a small boy regularly to tune into The Christophers or Lilias, Yoga and You, is what most parents my age remember, for their children, about the tedium of the age of the aerial. But there was more to that marvelous tedium, to that state of youthful consciousness that Pete Townshend once described as “magically bored,” than a simple lack of alternatives. The television itself was an object rich in monotonous mystery and miracles of frustration. It was regularly subject, like a medieval kingdom, to plagues, hauntings and afflictions: roll and static, partial eclipse, ghosts and snow. The image on the screen would periodically shiver and dissolve, lurch and turn over on itself. Fainter duplicates of the characters’ eyes would appear in the middle of their foreheads; the ghost of a grin would open horribly in a cheek or chin.

ESCAPIST SALES CONTINUE TO DECLINE
Wednesday, December 21, 2005, 8:22 AM ET
Source: ICv2

Comic stores ordered only 4,594 copies of Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist #8 in November, the lowest number since the series' debut, according to ICv2 and Diamond.

Dark Horse distributes its titles to comic stores exclusively by Diamond. However, these numbers do not include other sales outlets, specifically bookstores, where the Escapist can commonly be found.

ICv2's estimates, released Monday and based on Diamond's US sales indexes and publisher sales data, also do not include sales by Diamond UK, orders made after November, or copies still in Diamond's inventory.

Even with these exceptions, though, the numbers do give some insight into the business-side of the Escapist anthology. November's sales are less than half what issue #1's were in February 2004, when it sold 9,695 copies.

However, compared to the previous issue, sales only dropped 386 issues. The decline comes despite nabbing hot-property Brian K. Vaughan as a regular writer.

For further November comic sales analysis, head to ICv2.

ESCAPIST VOL. 3 TRADE SOLICITED
Monday, December 19, 2005, 8:43 AM ET
Source: Dark Horse Comics, Amazon

Both Dark Horse Comics and Amazon have posted solicitations for Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist Vol. 3, the trade paperback collecting issues #5-6. Oddly, however, the companies are featuring different cover art for the collection, which can be seen by following the links to their sites.

The TPB is due in stores April 12, a day after when Chabon's newest novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, was supposed to debut before the author delayed it to 2007.

WALDMAN'S 'MINNOW' TO BECOME FILM
Wednesday, December 16, 2005, 6:43 AM ET
Source: Minnow blog

Michelle Clunie from "Queer As Folk" takes the lead in Minnow.

An independent film group is adapting a horror story written by Ayelet Waldman.

Filmmakers have finished a first draft of a script based on Waldman's "Minnow," featured in McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories (edited by Michael Chabon). Their misadventures can be read at their blog.

Michelle Clunie ("Queer As Folk") will take the lead as Edie, a woman who aborts her unborn child when she discoverers it will be born with defects, only to have the child haunt her on a baby monitor. Joshua Miller (The Mao Game) will direct.

Asked via e-mail about the project, Waldman said, "It's in development, being shopped to studios now. Not much more news than what's on their website. Keep your fingers crossed!"

Mark Alexandre Fortin, an actor out of the American Repertory Theatre, is writing the script, his first attempt at page-to-screen adaptation.

"While this was my maiden voyage as far as page-to-screen is concerned, any complications that arose were borne solely out of our own ideas-- Ms. Waldman's words, finally, being what got us out of the more head-scratching situations we found ourselves in," Fortin says at the blog.

The group's option began in June, and the filmmakers plan to "just sticking to what's on the page-- and digging in between the lines," Fortin says.

"Bluntly put, there will be no CGI babies running around stalking a hot woman in a low-cut negligee," he says in an earlier post. "This is not Look Who's Talking by way of Roman Polanski. The purpose is to honor the source material that excited, inspired and haunted you from the very beginning."

He adds: "We're gonna scare the shit out of you."

Waldman could have at least one other film project in the works sometime soon. Her next novel, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, due out in January, was optioned by the Walt Disney Company.

WALDMAN STRUGGLES WITH WEIGHT ANXIETIES
Wednesday, December 11, 2005, 1:20 PM ET
Source: Salon

With the holiday season in mid-swing, Ayelet Waldman describes in newest Salon column her anxiety over her weight.

"Yesterday I turned 41, and if I were to calculate the amount of time I have spent over the course of these four decades obsessing about my weight, it would surely clock in as more hours than I've spent eating, writing, exercising and having sex. Combined," she writes. "In fact, the only thing I can think of that consumes more of my day than fat-phobic freakouts is reading."

She adds: "What a colossal and ridiculous waste of time."

To read her full colum, click here.

CHABON TAKES ON KONG
Sunday, December 11, 2005, 11:50 AM ET
Source: Globe and Mail

A new book exploring the cultural impact of King Kong features Michael Chabon.

Kong Unbound : The Cultural Impact, Pop Mythos, and Scientific Plausibility of a Cinematic Legend (Pocket, $14), released two weeks ago, has a what Globe and Mail calls "an engaging discussion" between Maurice Sendak, William Joyce and Chabon titled "On Kong."

On his website, Chabon lists 1933's King Kong as one of his favorite movies.

Other essays in the book explore themes throughout Kong, including the Great Depression, sexuality, slavery and science. Contributers include Ray Bradbury, William Stout and Alan Dean Foster, to name a few.

Head to Amazon for more details.

YIDDISH POLICEMEN DELAYED UNTIL 2007
Saturday, December 10, 2005, 2:57 PM ET
Updated: Sunday, December 11, 2005, 1:15 PM ET
Source: MichaelChabon.Com

Michael Chabon’s next novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, will not see print until winter 2007, delaying the book by more than half a year, the author announced Saturday.

On his website, Chabon said that while the manuscript was finished and the novel could have been published by its original publication date, April 11, a final dust jacket had still not been completed and many marketers had not even read the book yet.

“HarperCollins had been sort of rushing the thing along, over a steady but polite murmur from the author that perhaps they were moving too quickly,” he said. “Everything just felt too rushed and when that sense of undue haste finally caught on at the publishing house, I was able to persuade them to see reason, and wait.”

In saying no jacket was ready, Chabon presumably was refering only to the domestic edition, as apparently the UK's edition has one available, pictured with this article.

The move will delay the book until winter 2007, as HarperCollins’ fall lineup is already complete, Chabon said. The novel will debut seven years after The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

“I had hoped never to repeat the seven-year gap between The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys, but now--if you don't count Summerland (for younger readers) or The Final Solution (a novella)--I will have done it again,” Chabon said. “Oh, well.”

Chabon began writing the novel in February 2002. The novel, previously under the working title of Hotzeplotz, is a crime thriller set in an alternate reality where a post-war Jewish state was established in Alaska rather than Israel.

Chabon did see a bright side to the delay, as he would be able to allow “some trusted readers, some of them with special knowledge of the subjects involved,” to read over his manuscript, giving him one last chance to edit the novel.

The book’s publicity tour, comprising of 26 speaking engagements and book signings stretching from the Atlanta to Alaska, has subsequently been canceled for the time being, he said.

“I promise it is going to be worth the wait,” Chabon said.

(Correction: When first posted, this article made reference to a previous publication delay, refering to an October 3, 2005 release date at one time listed on Amazon. It has since come to the attention of this website that October 2005 was never officially set as publication date. The sentence has since been removed and the headline has been changed accordingly.)

CHABON TO GUEST-STAR ON SIMPSONS
Thursday, December 1, 2005, 8:51 AM ET
Source: LA Times

Michael Chabon will guest-star on an up-coming episode of The Simpsons, according to the LA Times.

The paper reported that authors Chabon, Gore Vidal, Tom Wolfe and Jonathan Franzen will lend their voices to the popular Fox cartoon. The episode will center around bartender Moe and his secret writing tallents.

"We started with the idea of Moe as Charles Bukowski," said Matt Warburton, the episode's scribe. "We brought Lisa in as the person who discovers in scuzzy, barfly Moe something that we've never seen before: a poet."

In the episode, Chabon and Franzen will get in a fight over literary influences. Franzen whacks Chabon with a chair. Chabon, according to the paper, "writhes as he lets out an anguished moan."

Franzen reportedly complained he had fewer lines than Chabon ("Only 38 words!"). Chabon replied, "I see there's a little counting going on in the Franzenian corner."

Simpsons creator Matt Groening told Chabon at the session that his kids are huge Chabon fans.

"That's great," Chabon said. "My kids were very excited when I told them that Matt Groening's kids know who their father is."

Chabon said, "My kids and my father are very excited."

Apparently not wanting to take Chabon's word alone for it, the paper called his father, Robert Chabon, who said he always expected his son to nab a Pulitzer and, someday, a National Book Award, "[but] him being on The Simpsons is beyond my wildest dreams. You envision certain successes for your children, but this kind of success — I never envisioned."

No word on when the episode will air.