Posted by Jason Diamond I eagerly await the Blue Rider Press release of Neil Young’s memoir, tentatively titled Waging Heavy Peace. But until I can get my grubby hands on a copy, I will wonder about a few things: 1. Will he dedicate an entire chapter to discuss the recording sessions for his 1982 album Trans? 2. Will he talk about his time playing alongside Rick James in the Motown Records band The Mynah Birds? 3. Will there be any discussion […]
For Milo, Who Has Plenty of Time: The Phantom Tollbooth turns 50
Posted by Emily Goldsher You know, literary types are very quick to wax poetic about the books of their youth—Alice in Wonderland, The Little Prince, The Wizard of Oz—but I find the common absence of Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth from bookish bookshelves a prime offense.
Morning Bites: MacArthur Grants, Live…Suburbia, Salman Rushdie’s tweets, Emma Straub’s tags, and more
A little preview of the very cool book Live… Suburbia!, coming out on Powerhouse Books at the end of the month. Emma Straub wrote something for Rookie that has the tags, 90210, first time, Friday Night Lights, sex, and TV. Upton Sinclair was born on this day in 1887, and so was Jelly Roll Morton, two years earlier, in 1885. Salman Rushdie is on Twitter. No word if he’s following @Qwikster or not. The 2011 MacArthur Genius Grants have been […]
How political pop punk taught me about P.G. Wodehouse
Posted by Jason Diamond Fifteen years ago this week I attained my drivers license, and then took my first solo drive to a record store so I could purchase Less Talk, More Rock by the Canadian pop punk band Propagandhi. Among songs titled “Nailing Descartes to the Wall/(Liquid) Meat Is Still Murder” and a bunch of lyrics decrying everything from sexism to homophobia, there was a line from the least-political song on the album, “Anchorless,” that really stuck with me […]
Morning Bites: Downton Abbey, Colin Meloy on NPR, Hitchens on Didion, St. Marks in the NYT, post-Borders, and more
Just what makes Downton Abbey the most popular costume drama in years? Colin Meloy of The Decemberists/writer of The Wildwood Chronicles, Book 1, was on this week’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! Do you have what it takes to be the managing editor of Rookiemag.com? Tavi Gevinson is looking for a managing editor, and it could possibly be the funnest job ever. Christopher Hitchens on Joan Didion’s new book, Blue Nights, at Vanity Fair. Sylvia Plath is getting her very own […]
Quotable: Nick Tosches on moving to New York
When did you move from Newark to Manhattan? 1969. I was 19, and I had a job at the Lovable Underwear Company, at 200 Madison Avenue. That’s true. I was doing back then, in the days before computers, what they called paystubs and mechanicals. You have a glue pot, a tea square, a razor blade, and you physically put together advertisements. That was the year I got my first piece published in a magazine called Fusion. Nick Tosches talks to […]
Morning Bites: Letters from Gorey, in defense defense of baseball novels, Sigur Rós, and more
The hand drawn envelopes of Edward Gorey. Asking about the future of science fiction writing…in 1971. An excerpt from the book Birds of Fire: Jazz, Rock, Funk, and the Creation of Fusion (Duke University Press) by Kevin Fellezs Mike Doherty at Salon defends baseball novels even though they net the writers $665,000 advances. (You could just hire a private security team with that sort of money.) Celebrating old(e) English embroidery at Yale. New video for the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy song “Quail […]
Morning Bites: Socrates, Where the heck is Houellebecq, Sampsell & Lutz, covering Sonic Youth, and more
Apparently Socrates was nothing like the guy Bill & Ted brought back with them. Salon explains. Michel Houellebecq has become the Carmen Sandiego of the literary world. Where the heck is he? The Rumpus serves up a duo of great interviews. The first is a conversation between two of our favorite writers, Kevin Sampsell and Gary Lutz. It’s technically Kevin interviewing Gary, but we’re gonna look past that little factoid. Then there’s another one with Misha Glouberman and Sheila Heti. […]