{"id":1773,"date":"2010-04-12T01:23:43","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T08:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2010\/04\/manhattan_muffdiver\/"},"modified":"2015-11-15T11:07:50","modified_gmt":"2015-11-15T16:07:50","slug":"manhattan_muffdiver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2010\/04\/manhattan_muffdiver.html","title":{"rendered":"Manhattan Muffdiver"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new novel hits the bookshelves in Vienna, and the Austrian television network ORF<\/a> interviews the author on the news. Try getting a novelist interviewed on the evening news in America. Never happen. Besides, we’re talking about a book called Manhattan Muffdiver<\/em><\/a>, not exactly a title that U.S. network censors<\/a> would approve.<\/p>\n

<\/a>It’s not altogether surprising that books and writers are TV news in Austria, the land of K&K — Kunst und Kultur. Austria lives for culture. Although I suppose ORF might have hesitated if it knew the meaning of “muffdiver.”<\/p>\n

Certainly some of the reviewers knew. Berlin radio called the book “as obscene as it is brilliant.” But that would likely not have been a deal breaker. (Have a look at this Dutch TV commercial<\/a>.) What’s more, there’s an aura of glamour associated with the author, due to his renown<\/a> as the unrivaled German translator of Burroughs, Bukowski, Dylan, Zappa, not to mention Ginsberg, Algren, Leonard Cohen, and many others. Which must have helped sell ORF on a news interview. (Click photo for ORF interview.)<\/small><\/p>\n

<\/a>Full disclosure: The author is an old friend. I published his first novel, The Braille Film<\/em><\/a>. It was written in English. Another friend published his second novel online, Death in Paris<\/em><\/a>. It too was written in English. Manhattan Muffdiver<\/em> is Carl Weissner’s third novel, written in German this time. It started off as emails he sent to friends from New York, and reads like a diary. But he elevated the facts, embroidered them with fiction. The result is literature. Here’s a sample:<\/p>\n

14 April 9:00 A.M.<\/p>\n

I have a new hangout a street behind the Edgar Allan Poe Caf\u00e9. It’s called NO PORK ON MY FORK because it’s an Islamic joint. I waltz in and say:<\/p>\n

“Hey, towel heads. I’m an agent provocateur from the FBI. I have an idea for you. We should blow the Trump Tower to smithereens. What do you think, huh?”<\/p>\n

“You’re not taking this seriously,” a character with a filthy beard grumbles.<\/p>\n

“Maybe if you’d learn to shove all that falafel into your filthy mouth instead of your ears,” I say, and in the next instant there’s the sound of breaking glass and crashing furniture and a chorus of “Kill that motherfucker! Al-Hamdulillah!”<\/p>\n

Always these nightmares.<\/em><\/p>\n

(Crossposted at HuffPo)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new novel hits the bookshelves in Vienna, and the Austrian television network ORF interviews the author on the news. Try getting a novelist interviewed on the evening news in America. Never happen. Besides, we’re talking about a book called Manhattan Muffdiver, not exactly a title that U.S. network censors would approve. It’s not altogether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-literature","7":"category-political-culture","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-sB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1773"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18510,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773\/revisions\/18510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}