A print shop reopens in lower Manhattan. A suggestion that Hilary Swank should get all A Visit From The Goon Squad to take care of the criticism she’s receiving for accepting a fee to fly to Chechnya and celebrate the birthday of its president (and notorious ignorer of human rights), Ramzan Kadyrov. Long before Orson Welles scared the world into thinking that the H.G. Wells novel The Ward Of The Worlds had become a reality on Halloween in 1938, there was The Great Moon Hoax of 1835. […]
Morning Bites: Victorian Spiritualists, Phantom Tollbooth, Halloween plans, letters from Burroughs, and more
Best title of the day: “Victorian ectoplasm-producing mediums: freaks or fakes?” Letters from William Burroughs. A documentary on 50 years of The Phantom Tollbooth. We wrote an essay on the book’s birthday as well. If your Halloween plans include watching Roger Corman’s series of Edgar Allan Poe films from the 1960s, maybe take a listen to this interview the director did with Edward Champion first. Or if you don’t have any Halloween plans, maybe you’re up for seeing Alejandro Jodorowsky’s […]
The Beach Boys cover Panda Bear
Posted by Jason Diamond Kidding. The title should have actually been “Panda Bear and Animal Collective get their entire career game plan from a 1967 Beach Boys B-Side.”
Morning Bites: Writers for Occupy Oakland, Edith Wharton, Bosworth’s e-chap, Weather Underground, Chip Kidd,
Dave Eggers, Michael Pollan, and other writers denounce the City of Oakland’s response to the Occupy protests. Professor Edith Wharton teaches class at HTML Giant. Mel Bosworth and Christy Crutchfield have a new e-chapbook out on Deckfight called The Five Lost Senses of Carl. Chip Kidd is going to write a Batman graphic novel. Gary Shteyngart talks to The Atlantic. So on that movie Anonymous about William Shakespeare… A 1976 documentary on the Weather Underground. Women from the 1930s dressed like mythological […]
Vol. 1 presents: Dennis Cooper in conversation with Brandon Stosuy
Dennis Cooper’s latest book, The Marbled Swarm, is out on Harper Perennial on November 1st, and he’ll be discussing the novel and his career with Brandon Stosuy (Pitchfork) at powerHouse Arena on Tuesday, November 15th. The event is free, starts at 7PM and will probably get packed fast, so we suggest getting there early. RSVP at the Facebook invite.
Morning Bites: Julie Klausner, Romance novels, Joseph Heller on war, Willa Cather, and more
NBC picked up the show Apocalipstick, which will be written and produced by the very talented Julie Klausner. The Hairpin breaks down how to write romance novels. Fixating on a Willa Cather sentence. Joseph Heller didn’t mind war that much. Steve Martin, Gillian Welch, and Ed Helms in a bluegrass mockumentary is probably the best thing of the day. Tom Waits is interviewed while sitting in a barber shop. Can somebody please front us the money to buy John Hughes’ former […]
How much Holocaust can Shalom Auslander take?
Posted by Jason Diamond I’m quite curious about Shalom Auslander’s forthcoming novel, Hope: A Tragedy (Riverhead) I find some of Auslander’s stories hilarious, but others I’m not so sure about. I’ve come to think that my trepidation stems from the fact that I think Auslander is doing a good job of deconstructing what I’ve heard refereed to as “Holocaust culture,” but then he situates it too comfortably next to his self-hating Jew schtick. If I had to make a decision on the matter, I’d rather […]
Morning Bites: Shalom Auslander, Neal Pollack, German publishers, horror films, and more
The beautiful books of Lubok Verlag Publishing. (Via Design*Sponge) Shalom Auslander calls his friends Ira Glass and Sarah Vowell to ask if he can stay in their attics if the next Holocaust happens. The Lapham’s Quarterly podcast talks to John Crowley about the 30th anniversary of his novel Little, Big. Neal Pollack is interviewed about his book Jewball at Jewcy. Two dudes talking about umbrellas: A 50-year-old Harold Pinter sketch is unearthed. Has it been a good 51 years for horror […]