https://www.austinchronicle.com/books/2000-07-07/77806/

Postscripts

By Clay Smith, July 7, 2000, Books

BNTV

B&N.com recently created BNTV (www.barnesandnoble.com/community/bntv/), a "programming concept" that makes intriguing bedfellows of authors and the Web. The first incarnation of the new programming is "bookVideos," three-minute short films that can be viewed at the site and are "designed to do for books what music videos did for music," as the site explains. Later this year, BNTV will introduce "Behind the Word," a series of author interviews. At press time, BNTV had Linda Greenlaw, a hero of Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, talking a bit about her book The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain's Journey. "The sea was calm and visibility excellent -- a great day to start the trip," she begins, as the sun rises over the surface of the ocean. She talks a bit about how commercial fishing is "the most dangerous occupation" and about her initial intention to merely attempt commercial fishing for one year before heading off to law school. Eighteen years later, she's still doing it because, she says, "it's what I like to do." We all have our quirks. I like to spend my time charitably, so I've come up with a list of ideas for three-minute short films for BNTV starring characters from recently published books:

The Verificationist, by Donald Antrim: A psychoanalyst is meeting at the Pancake House & Bar with his colleagues for one of their informal meetings. This would make a good short film because there's no fun quite like the fun psychoanalysts have when they decide to get together "informally." Our analyst begins to feel himself floating up to the ceiling. That's about it.

Sam the Cat and Other Stories, by Matthew Klam: Three minutes in the life of a big, stupid jerk who has a knack for saying the wrong things at the wrong time. He and the girl he is dating break up, again.

White Teeth, by Zadie Smith: This will be tough. We're going for the big vision here, none of this semiautobiographical first-novel bologna. In fact, don't put any fictional characters in this short film: How about three minutes of Zadie Smith having some big visions?

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers: A strict three-minute limit for this author! Stand-up bits culled from one of his two-hour-and-longer booksignings.

Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris: Three minutes of the day, early in the author's development, when his drug dealer moved to Georgia to enter a treatment center. "I'm an artist and I need to know where my drugs are coming from!" he keeps saying. Alternate idea: a kind of ethnographic study of the author's father going from room to room in his house hiding figs, olives stolen from other people's martinis, and cherry tomatoes until they rot. Then he eats them. (BNTV: This will need to be longer than three minutes.)

Slam Regionals

Slam poets are always coming up with firsts: This year's team (Sonya Fehér, Ragan Fox, Jeff Knight, and Gerald Youngblood) will be competing with teams from Dallas and San Antonio in a first-of-its-kind regional tournament on July 7 and 8. The July 7 event takes place at the Off-Center (2211-A Hidalgo) at 8pm with the three Texas teams competing against the Oklahoma City team. The slam series is currently running every Thursday at Gaby & Mo's (1809 Manor); sign-up is at 7:30pm, with the slam beginning at 8pm.