“When it was Diamond’s turn to respond, it promptly devolved into the Friar’s Club Roast of the Music Industry. He acted boorish, crass, flippant, indifferent, graceless, unappreciative — it was pretty punk rock.” –Christopher Weingarten at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.

• “Like the traveler lugging the cardboard valise, the reader finds herself pulled in a new direction with every page, deep into a city far more interesting than our own, full of urban decay, old-world philosophizing in invented languages, and besuited men striding with purpose in and out of absurd workplaces.” –Dan Kois reviews Ben Katchor’s The Cardboard Valise.

• An excerpt from Blake Butler’s There Is No Year can be read at The Collagist.

• On Friday, Slice will hold the third edition of their literary-challege-for-tasty-pie known as Piethos. (Vol.1 took part in the second; now-outlawed alcohol-infused energy drinks were involved.) This time out, people from fine organizations such as HTML Giant, WORD, and Gigantic will be participating.

– Vendela Vida revisits Sweden, and her grandfather’s family.