Category Archives: books

Fight Club on Ice

Back before the dawn of time (2004) Ain’t It Cool taunted us with rumors of [tag]Fight Club: the Musical[/tag]. They asked [tag]Chuck Pahalniuk[/tag] about it:

Seems it’s mostly true.

At a reading last night on the UW campus, Chuck answered a question from the audience about the fight club musical. He said that the same folks who financed the movie are tentatively behind it, as are Fincher and Reznor (who’s agreed to do the soundtrack!). but…he did note that while they’ve got a bunch of talk going on and the promise of Reznor, they ain’t got much else.

Chuck went on to say that most of the stuff they do with his writing he doesn’t care about; he says he can’t really control how the studios fuck with his characters or themes, so he just accepts the checks and goes on his way. Choke, Survivor and Invisible Monsters are all in some form gonna hit theaters (Choke first…starting filming in a couple months). BUT, he did say that he’d be personally involved in just about anything if he got to work with both Reznor and Fincher on the project (he said he’d even do “Fight Club on Ice” if that’s what it took).

Recently, I started seeing links to a Paste Magazine article that seems to repeat the rumor. Alas, Paste Magazine has one of the least reliable websites in the Universe, so I don’t know that we’ll ever know what the article really says unless we make the effort to find it reposted somewhere else.

[tag]McSweeney’s[/tag] posted a fake soundtrack listing for Fight Club: The Musical. “You Can’t Talk About Fight Club … but You Can Sing About Fight Club!”)

Over at The Cult (ChuckPalahniuk.Net), it appears that Cultleader Dennis is much too busy with the website redesign and news about the forthcoming release of the film version of [tag]Choke[/tag] to mention a Fight Club musical, even if there is one brewing. I tried to search the site but it’s really slow right now.

New Choke stills are posted, by the way. Also, tantalizing suggestions that I am Legend director Francis Lawrence may still be making [tag]Survivor[/tag]. I find that last bit much more exciting, because I adored Survivor but was sort of lukewarm about Choke. It was a great novel, I just wasn’t crazy about it. Maybe I should read it again, it’s a quick read. I’d rather see [tag]Fight Club on Ice[/tag], though. That sounds like it would be time well-spent.

Sheep Week continues

Sunday night I started [tag]Blood Price[/tag], the second book in [tag]Tanya Huff[/tag]’s series about a private investigator who works with a vampire to solve crimes. (It’s better than I just made it sound). The first book was published in 1991 and has recently been turned into a TV series. ([tag]Blood Ties[/tag] – I haven’t watched it yet).

In Blood Price, detective Vicki Nelson is hired to solve a series of murders on…a sheep farm.

Winners and Losers in Old Town, Alexandria

Winners: the fiber obsessed who shop, teach or take classes at [tag]Springwater Fiber Workshop[/tag].

A pledge drive raised the $100,000 necessary for the beloved shop and school, which have been in [tag]Alexandria[/tag] for twenty-two years, to stay open. (Actually, they’re going to close the store and then reopen it all fresh and new in January). You can read more about it here: “Pledge Drive Saves Fiber Workshop.”

Losers: Everyone.

Sorry, I was really sad about this one when I heard about it.

[tag]A Likely Story[/tag], a phenomenal [tag]children’s bookshop[/tag], closed it’s doors in November, just a year after being named the most outstanding children’s bookshop in the country. Kids really liked going there. To read. The Old Town fixture had also been open for over twenty years. Although it was always full of children, most of them dripping some sort of viscous [tag]mucous[/tag] as children are wont to do, it was a really cool store.

There’s also an article in today’s Washington Post about it, For Children’s Bookstore, an Unhappy End – A Likely Story, Beloved by Families, Faces Fiscal Reality.”

Stephanie Landrum, of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership, was interviewed for the story:

Landrum said that in the past year, 10 small businesses in Alexandria have closed. Some, such as the Cash Grocer on King Street or a piano store on N. St. Asaph Street, closed because the owners wanted to retire. Others, like the ReMix in Del Ray, relocated. With a hotel slated to go up across the street from A Likely Story, Landrum said she isn’t sure what kind of business might want to locate there. “Another bookstore?” she said. “Who knows. But the odds are slim. Independent booksellers are few and far between.”

It was surprising to me to read how few people at A Likely Story’s events actually stayed to buy books. The only time I ever went in was when I was with someone who needed to do actual shopping, so it didn’t occur to me that the mobs of people I always saw inside weren’t leaving their cash behind.

Ira Levin, RIP

Earlier this week the Associated Press reported on the death of [tag]Ira Levin[/tag]. Levin wrote memorably creepy novels that in turn became (generally Campy) iconic films. Most notably, [tag]A Kiss Before Dying[/tag], [tag]Rosemary’s Baby[/tag], [tag]The Boys from Brazil[/tag], and [tag]The Stepford Wives[/tag] (twice).

Levin’s page-turning books were once compared by Newsweek writer Peter S. Frescott to a bag of popcorn: “Utterly without nutritive value and probably fattening, yet there’s no way to stop once you’ve started.”

The AP obituary lacks one of my favorite (although possibly apocryphal) quotes about Levin’s insidiously clever plotting:

Stephen King described Levin as “the Swiss watchmaker of suspense novels”, adding: “He makes what the rest of us do look like cheap watchmakers in drugstores.”

Levin also wrote plays, some good ([tag]Deathtrap[/tag]), some not so good ([tag]Drat! That Cat![/tag]), and adapted [tag]No Time for Sargeants[/tag] from novel to play.