Jonathan Ames and buddy Dean Haspiel have a conversation.

• At N+1, Caleb Crain comes right out and says Avatar gave him a “four-hour headache” in the first sentence.

• Fictionaut talks to Nicki Pombier Berger from Underwater New York.

• Slate takes a look at A Separate Peace at 50 years old.

• 3:AM Magazine talked to quite a few folks in 2009.

• The Millions calls Christopher Isherwood’s The Berlin Stories, “a book for years end”.

• Dangerous Minds sums up why the last decade sucked:

“Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer croaked while Carlos Mencia and Glenn Beck continued to breathe; Hunter S. Thompson and David Foster Wallace killed themselves when Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore should have”

• Elvis, Big Star, and Harpo Marx all sing about blue moons.