(My initial plan was to create a title for this podcast that was actually an acrostic spelling out “Oulipo.” The best I came up with was “Our Unique Lab Instigating Poetic Opportunities,” which is decent, self-referential, and strange, but not perfect. Unfortunately, drinking didn’t help me improve upon that, so . . .) <\/p>\n
This week’s podcast features a special discussion with Daniel Levin Becker, author of Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Liteature<\/em>,<\/a> a history of of the Oulipo, past, present, and future. For the uninitiated, the Oulipo is a 50-year-old group of writers and mathematicians and others interested in the idea of “potential” literature. At times highly technical and esoteric in their thinking about literature, the group also has a sort of prankster streak, which comes out in the liveliness of many of their writings. Some of the most famous works produced by Oulipian writers include Georges Perec’s Life A User’s Manual<\/em>, Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler . . .<\/em>, and Harry Mathews’s Cigarettes<\/em>. (Also see: all of Raymond Queneau and Jacques Roubaud, the works of Jacques Jouet, and those of Paul Fournel.) <\/p>\n Of our thirty-six<\/em> podcasts so far, this is one of the more serious, thoughtful, and PG-13 rated. To help provide a bit more context for the Oulipo and the discussion, check out my GoodReads review of Many Subtle Channels<\/em><\/a> before listening.<\/p>\n To slightly amend that GoodReads review, I pulled down my copy of Zazie in the Metro<\/em> today to see what it was that was written on the opening page that so intrigued me and kicked off my lifelong addiction to this sort of linguistic puzzle-making:<\/p>\n In case you can’t read it, that says: “I don’t see why such language must be used in a book. It destroys the good in it. If authors can’t write books without all this unenjoyable language, then they shouldn’t write at all,” with “oh, shut up!” added by a third reader. <\/p>\n As always you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes by clicking here<\/a>. To subscribe with other podcast downloading software, such as Google’s Listen<\/a>, copy the following link<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"