Reality Hunger: A Manifesto

I haven’t finished it yet.  But Reality Hunger: A Manifesto by David Shields is making me forget to eat my food. That’s how good it is. I’m sitting there in my local restaurants trying my best to finish my Pasta Siciliana, but I’m staring at my Kindle screen and almost jumping out of my chair with ideas. That’s what this book is for. It was written to light a fire underneath the bottom of an artist.

Don’t be afraid of stealing.  Just do it.

David Shields is a thief and he’s the happiest most energetic thief you’ll ever meet between to covers.  All art is theft.  We build all our original creations on top of other creations.  We consume and then we spit the pieces back out in exploding new arrangements.  We appropriate all the time when we incorporate bits of newsprint into paintings, or street sounds into symphonies, or quotes into novels.

Novels.  What are they and what do they really do?  Do we need or want novels anymore?  Fiction?  Or do we want the more real?  Are we craving more and more reality?  It’s on TV everywhere.  Can the old form of the novel that describes scenes so well and gets into the characters’ heads really compete with all the new forms coming to life that are built primarily upon reality?

What is reality?  Whose reality?  Isn’t one’s perception of a simple street scene actually fiction once it passes through the subjective filter?  Isn’t everything ultimately fiction?

Shields’s book is composed of many fragments mostly snatched from other people throughout history.  Shields leaves his own remarks unannounced until the back of the book where he finally credits his sources.  The point is to connect thoughts from all over the world through many ages to gradually build up a central argument or ‘manifesto’ for a modern art or literature that eliminates the guilt from borrowing or ‘stealing.’  The ideas are obviously not all new, otherwise there would be no fragments to put in the book.  But the expression of the ideas in this way is new.  Reality Hunger is a jolt and it will offend as many or more people than it inspires.

Several years ago Bob Dylan got into hot water for using a phrase from a relatively unknown novel.  Sure enough, Dylan’s phrase did match the novelist’s.  Outrage ensued.  When the novelist was asked about his feelings he stated that if Bob Dylan wanted to use one of his phrases he was simply honored.

This book is very timely in a world where people are getting into lawsuits because some artist’s sculpture appears in a street photo.  We’ve been waiting for this book.  Fortunately, Mr. Shields is as excited about this book as his readers are – those who aren’t outraged anyway.  He comes off as a very energetic and enthusiastic partner to the artist.  I admire this book a great deal and will most likely be referring to bits and pieces of it for many years – and stealing them.

Audio Podcast Novel: Pinocchio (Chapter 4)


DOWNLOAD PINOCCHIO – CHAPTER 4

Per l’Italia! For playing in the living room!

This is one of the great gifts from Italy to the children of the world. Carlo Collodi’s 1883 masterpiece, The Adventures of Pinocchio, is the story of the wooden marionette who desperately wants to be a real boy. His adventures are full of mischief, wonder, sadness, joy, treachery, danger and all the exuberant life of a real Italian boy. This is the English translation by Carol Della Chiesa. The first seventeen chapters of this wonderful novel were recorded intermittently between 1999 and 2006, specifically for children to enjoy on the web. But I was unable to finish it. It is a very long story indeed and the demands of this particular recording were very great. I have decided that it would be a good thing for Italy and its most beautiful living rooms if I were to finally finish the book. I am cleaning up the sound a little bit and will start recording the eighteenth chapter soon. So here we begin the long story and in a few months we will reach the finish!

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Reading and illustration by Alessandro Cima

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

Podcast Novel: Pirate Jack (Chapter 16)

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This book contains pirate battles, violence and death. Please use your judgment before playing for very young children.

Here’s a free podcast of our fantastic pirate adventure novel written for young readers. It’s got hidden scrolls, time travel, ships, battles, navigation, gold, islands, jungles and helicopters in it.

You can purchase the high-quality paperback from Amazon for $11.95 or just $1.99 for a Kindle e-book version.

You can purchase the paperback from Barnes & Noble (Price: $11.95)

You can also get it on Scribd.com as a download for just $1.99

Description:
Young Jack Spencer sees his father’s boat-building business destroyed by a powerful land developer. Then Jack unearths three ancient scrolls that propel him on a dangerous adventure through time in search of a pirate treasure.

When Jack finds himself aboard the pirate ship Revenge with Captain Jameson’s crew, he enters a life or death world of ship battles, jungle islands, prison escapes, gold, and treachery.

Set during the golden age of Caribbean piracy, Pirate Jack combines rollicking adventure with the moving story of a boy’s love for his father and a courageous effort to save a way of life.

Get all the chapters of the book podcast here.

You’ll find regular podcasts of all the chapters over the next couple of months. Subscribe to our feed.

This book is read by the author.

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Podcast Novel: Pirate Jack (Chapter 15)

DOWNLOAD MP3 AUDIO

This book contains pirate battles, violence and death. Please use your judgment before playing for very young children.

Here’s a free podcast of our fantastic pirate adventure novel written for young readers. It’s got hidden scrolls, time travel, ships, battles, navigation, gold, islands, jungles and helicopters in it.

You can purchase the high-quality paperback from Amazon for $11.95 or just $1.99 for a Kindle e-book version.

You can purchase the paperback from Barnes & Noble (Price: $11.95)

You can also get it on Scribd.com as a download for just $1.99

Description:
Young Jack Spencer sees his father’s boat-building business destroyed by a powerful land developer. Then Jack unearths three ancient scrolls that propel him on a dangerous adventure through time in search of a pirate treasure.

When Jack finds himself aboard the pirate ship Revenge with Captain Jameson’s crew, he enters a life or death world of ship battles, jungle islands, prison escapes, gold, and treachery.

Set during the golden age of Caribbean piracy, Pirate Jack combines rollicking adventure with the moving story of a boy’s love for his father and a courageous effort to save a way of life.

Get all the chapters of the book podcast here.

You’ll find regular podcasts of all the chapters over the next couple of months. Subscribe to our feed.

This book is read by the author.

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Audio Podcast Novel: Robinson Crusoe (Part 6)

DOWNLOAD ROBINSON CRUSOE – PART 6

Crusoe continues to offer the reader his journal entries, describing how he brought supplies from off the shipwreck. He battles sickness and finds a way to speed his recovery. He begins to read a copy of the Bible that he finds in one of his chests. This causes him to ponder the nature of his deliverance and he begins to read the book regularly for the first time in his life. Defoe is here beginning his fascinating analysis of a human being’s place in the world and how hardship can lead a person to question the very nature of existence.

As Crusoe recovers from his sickness, he begins to venture farther abroad on the island, discovering things that will assist his survival efforts.

Subscribe to audio podcast

Subscribe to audio with iTunes

Read by Alessandro Cima
Illustration by NC Wyeth (1920)
Crusoe reads his Bible and ponders the nature of his deliverance.

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute copies of our MP3 audio or video stories. They are for your personal use. If you choose to burn our MP3 stories onto a personal CD, do not make copies of the CD or distribute them to other people. Also, do not sell CDs containing our audio stories. All audio stories are copyrighted by Candlelight Stories, Inc.

New Illustrated Alice in Wonderland

Artist Camille Rose Garcia has illustrated a new version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I’d read her book instead of seeing the Tim Burton film. He’s really just the most obnoxiously untalented movie-maker.  He is mistakenly called a ‘dark’ director.  He is not.  Actually, he is as moronically cheerful and sunshiny as Walt Disney. And Johnny Depp’s entire talent and technique as a performer resides within his wrists. It’s bravura wrist-acting.  So skip the lumbering slog of a film and read the excellent book with the beautiful illustrations by Garcia.

Her pictures make me want to read the book again.  Here’s a L.A. Times Jacket Copy article about the artist.