Stuart Noble

Robert Gibbons at America Adrift

Over at America Adrift we are pleased to announce that Robert Gibbons has graciously submitted a piece for our readers. America Adrift, as an informal blog of sorts, does not claim any publishing rights to any work submitted. Our writers and contributors own their own words. While The Oblique Angle will undoubtedly be formally published elsewhere, we are very privileged to post it here first for our readers.

Federman Frenzy

Federman Frenzy, available as an open source web publication.

The volume presents four scholarly articles, and as indicated on the poster (make sure to enlarge it so that you can see the table of contents to begin with), it also offers readers a special treat in the form of unpublished texts by Federman. The book Federman Frenzy: the ‘cult’ in culture, the ‘me’ in memory, the ‘he’ in history – encounters with Raymond Federman is published as a web publication by Research News, Dept. of Language and Culture, Aalborg University.

America

“America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.”

H/T the Literary Outpost.

This is Ginsberg reciting his poem but I don’t know why the word order is changed from the original. I’m sure Bent could help us with this.

I think this re-mix is fantastic. I’ve emailed the creator of the video to ask her/him about the music and video that was chosen. I love how Ginsberg is adopted and recreated as contemporary political and social commentary.

UPDATE: Here’s the reply I received from the video’s author.

The project had more to do with American history (1932-62) than Ginsberg himself or the Beat movement. It accompanied an essay about how we got from the New Deal to the Communist witch hunts and Cuban Missile Crisis.

The music is from Angelo Badalamenti and the Prague Philharmonic. The reading is from a Library of Congress recording from San Fransisco in 1959. The video is public footage from news reels from the above period and my own archive of family home movies from the Fifties and early Sixties.

I suppose the intention is to project how the population’s own divided feelings about the national identity reflect Ginsberg’s confused feelings about his own identity as American.

Madeleine L’Engle, Author of "A Wrinkle in Time," Dies at 88

“Madeleine L’Engle, who in writing more than 60 books, including childhood fables, religious meditations and science fiction, weaved emotional tapestries transcending genre and generation, died Thursday in Connecticut. She was 88.”

“A Wrinkle in Time” was one of my favorite books as a young boy. It’s been years since I’ve thought about the book, almost forgoten it completely until L’Engle’s death comes through the news wires. I’m ordering a copy now for my son. Check out the NY Times piece above. NPR has an entertaining interview with astronaut Janice Voss about the impact of L’Engle’s book here.

Dreaming in Cuban

Dreaming in Cuban: An Historical Perspective
by Dorte Rasmussen

In Christina García’s Dreaming in Cuban from 1992, we learn about and experience the history and culture of Cuba from both inside and outside the Caribbean island. Three generations of women dominate this magically told story of a family divided by the political, social and geographical split, caused by the communist revolution in Cuba. García brilliantly intertwines the factual and historical aspect of Cuba with her own fictional and magical story of the woman, making Cuba an active and important character in the story, by using the history events as time reference to tell the story of the women.

read the entire article

The US Muslim Punk Scene

The Taqwacores – a novel about a fictitious Muslim punk scene in the US – has spawned an actual movement that is being driven forward by young Muslims worldwide.