The next article of mine to see print will likely appear in the lavishly illustrated new magazine Culture & Travel, where Peter works as a senior editor. They don’t put very many of their articles online, and it isn’t easy to find on newsstands, so if you’d like to read it, your best bet is to click here and fill out the questionnaire to see if you qualify for a free subscription.
NYRB has a blog
You probably already knew that Serge Gainsbourg ripped off Paul Verlaine’s "Chanson d’automne" in his song "Je suis venu te dire que je m’en vais" ("I’ve Come to Say I’m Leaving"). In the poem, Verlaine remembers the old days and cries; in the song, the woman whom Gainsbourg is dumping does. (And maybe he ripped it off again in "Black Trombone," which, like Verlaine’s poem, rhymes monotone with automne; the idea of rhyming both words with autochtone, however, must be unequivocally credited to Gainsbourg.)
You may not, however, have known that the poem is painted on a wall in Leiden, the Netherlands. I was turned on to the wall poems of Leiden by a new blog, A Different Stripe, produced by the always-excellent New York Review Books (NYRB) series. Worth checking out.
They order this matter better in France
I’m a few days late in noticing it, but my friend Alexander Chee, the novelist, has posted some thoughts on World AIDS Day, which was December 1, and also a few funny and risqué public-service-announcement videos from the French group AIDES. (Alex’s blog is safe for work, but the videos aren’t, so don’t click them unless you’re comfortable watching something that’s mildly sexually explicit).
Late Victorian Beauties, in Previews
My friend Katie Koskenmaki has directed a trailer for Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty, a Gothic boarding-school mystery novel for young adults. It’s part of the Book Standard‘s Teen Book Video Awards. After you’ve admired the puffy white dresses, the porcelain complexions, the sense of foreboding, and the amber glimpse of beefcake, vote for Katie here.
Peter’s memoir
Peter is being bashful about it, but his wonderful memoir-essay, "Postcards to Myself," is the first piece in Only Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing Up Solo, edited by Deborah Siegel and Daphne Uviller, and coming out from Crown in late December. An excerpt of his essay is available on the Random House website: Peter Terzian, "Postcards to Myself". (To read the denouement, however, you have to pre-order a copy and wait for Christmas.)