Regarding the book: I’m still looking forward to reading it, and given what Liz points out, I’m not sure about Rose as a reviewer (though I do agree that the press kit is questionable — but whatever it takes to sell books, eh?). Did you read Sittenfeld’s story from a few year’s back in the Mississippi Review? If you haven’t, Sarah’s got a link in her post today.

However, I’m much more intrigued by your use of the phrase, “blowing off,” CAAF. In my neck of the woods, “blowing off” always meant “failing to attend” (“I’m blowing off seventh-period social studies”), sometimes with malice (“I waited for half an hour at Blimpie’s, but bitch blew me off”). The oral sex infinitive was always just “to blow.” Anyway. Can you tell I’m avoiding work? Maybe Lynne Truss wants to weigh in…

“A new aphorism for the over-30 set: Don’t trust anyone who claims to be objective about experimental fiction. Subjectivity is part and parcel of the experience, and quite gloriously so, it seems to me. I cheerfully admit that a lot of what passes for experimentalism leaves a bad taste in my mouth, the leftover tang of my undergraduate tutelage at the hands of a famously provocative avant-gardist who was quoted, back in the day, on the first page of The New York Times Book Review claiming that “plot and character are the enemies of fiction.” Heady stuff to the confused and impressionable 20-year-old under his wing, especially when head was more or less what the great man was doggedly trying to solicit from my girlfriend.”

Here’s the link: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ICQ/is_2004_Nov_8/ai_n6338604