The New York Times on the last days of Jim Carroll.
Lit.
Frank Portman’s King Dork: future banned book?
Every now and then, we just have to re-bring up the question “Why are we still reading Dickens?” (The Rumpus reminded us that The Guardian reminded us a few weeks ago.) Answer: good characters, good stories, social, historical, amusing, etc…. I’m glad we keep ending at the same conclusion.
Famous novelists spies. Very cool. Tolkien, Greene, Maugham, Fleming…
The Millions on Edward Gorey’s impishness.
Speaking of The Millions, everyone’s talking about their Best Fiction of the Millennium (So Far) list. Franzen’s The Corrections was named number one last week, and they’ve now got a side-by-side comparison of their own list and a list from their readers (wow, Oscar Wao).
Politics
Iran, nuclearity, Obama. Agh! Hey, could I have some health care?
Misc.
Fucked in Park Slope reports on last weekend’s Westboro Baptist Church’s traveling show of intolerance, the members of which travel around around the country “protesting” Jews and gays. (Nice choice of location, guys, Park Slope is ALL Jews and “fags.”) As the blog stated last week, though, “It’s always fun when we’re able to find a group that’s way more annoying than all the tofu-lovin Coopretards, even more bitch-slappable than the stroller hogging moms at the Teat, and sooo much more offensive and deplorable than our own whiny, can’t STFU bitchy bloggin’ asses.”