Weekend Bites: Jami Attenberg in Tijuana, Discussing Reality Hunger, Hating on the Classics, Marc Ribot, and More

Jami Attenberg shares the piece she wrote for The Greatest Three-Minute Rock ‘n’ Roll Story Ever event that we produced with our pals at Gigantic Magazine in Feb. At HTMLGIANT, Blake Butler and Matthew Simmons discuss Reality Hunger. The Rumpus book club sounds like a great idea. Who was Charles Dickens? Great  title: “Wonk by Day, Poet by Night“. Hating on the classics. Marc Ribot discusses scoring The Kid.

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Reviewed: One Hour of Television by Kristina Born

(Year of the Liquidator, 2009) 147 p. Review by Tobias Carroll The scenes, lectures, and digressions that comprise One Hour of Television come at you quickly, and if a pattern exists, it isn’t readily apparent. Lara Glenum’s blurb on the back cover raises the notion of channel-surfing, and that may be the best comparison for the sort of collage effect that Kristina Born’s book evokes. Cycle through enough stations and you’ll eventually find patterns; you’ll be bombarded with loping cross-sections […]

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Me and Bunny Munro, Several Months Later

Last October, I shared some thoughts on Nick Cave’s novel, The Death of Bunny Munro, from the point of view of a person who’s been a Cave fan for 15+ years. he has written a pretty good story, but 278 pages chronicling the life of a piece of human garbage gets old faster than a three minute song. Now, as I sit here with the sun shining into my room — opposed to the choking gray of Autumn — I’m […]

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Will There be a Riot at the Literary Death Match Tonight?

The Literary Death Match makes it’s triumphant return to New York tonight, and has a cast of misfits unlike any of the previous lineups I’ve seen. Mike Edison performing?  (Former Vol. 1 Brooklyn Storytelling host) Jena Friedman judging alongside Richard Nash and a fashion blogger?  Seriously?  Is “Jailbreak” by Thin Lizzy going to be looping in the background?  Will Jena Friedman make a joke that offends over 70% of the crowd?  Will Mike Edison condense his normally epic rock n’ […]

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75-Year-old Penguin Buys a Car

Penguin is 75 years old.  I know this thanks to Jacket Copy. I’d like to thank Penguin for putting out the Viking Portable Library series, and also finding a way to get their tote bags on the shoulders of so many pretty girls.

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Reviewed: The Awful Possibilities by Christian TeBordo

(featherproof, 2010) 185 p. Review by Tobias Carroll Punctuating the spaces between stories in Christian TeBordo’s collection The Awful Possibilities are a series of postcards, their images disfigured by the skull-faced raindrops that alight across the book’s cover, their words acting out a parody of intimate communications. “Postcards I sent home when we were last on vacation together so that you would have something to look forward to on our return,” reads a line of text at the bottom of […]

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