Joseph Epstein at The Atlantic asks, “Is Franz Kafka Overrated?” He offers his own difficulty stomaching Kafka’s work while having his morning tea and toast, and then provides a number of other (by Walter Benjamin, Erich Heller, Isaac Bashevis Singer, etc.) thoughts on the writer, and then tries to sell us on his idea that”Kafka, in other words, is given a pass on criticism.” Also, “The argument is that he cannot finally be explained, but merely read, appreciated, and reread until his meaning, […]
Tom Hanks Likes Your Bookshelf
I don’t know exactly what film it was that tipped me off that Hollywood had run out of good ideas; I believe it may have been the 21 Jump Street film that actually turned out to be pretty funny, but then I recall seeing the trailer for the 2005 film remake of The Dukes of Hazzard, and telling myself that the well had run dry in Hollywood. It’s so bad with these remakes that it is at the point where I can’t remember […]
A Guy Watching Mad Men: Hero Takes A Fall (S6/E11 “Favors”)
I’m just going to go ahead and come out and say this: I knew about you, Bob Benson.
Drone The Day Away With The Sunn O))) Discography
I’ve always been a fan of working to instrumental music or music with spotty or otherwise absent vocals. I’m an even bigger fan of stuff that you can literally tune out, like background noise to break up the silence, but not distract you from the task at hand. That’s why it should be no surprise that Sunn O))) is usually playing over my speakers when I’m writing.
A Night With The Dandies
We spent last Wednesday evening at The Dalloway with our friends from Yale Press, Against Nature, and Brooklyn Gin to celebrate the release of the book Artist/Rebel/Dandy: Men of Fashion. A few highlights included Simon Doonan read about mods, Sadie Stein from The Paris Review read about Charles Ryder’s first meeting Anthony Blanche from Brideshead Revisited, Simon Van Booy reading Virginia Woolf’s essay on Beau Brummell Jake Mueser from Against Nature read a passage from the Joris-Karl Huysmans book that shares a name with Mueser’s bespoke […]
A Guy On Mad Men: Everybody Must Get Stoned (S6/E10, “A Tale of Two Cities”)
Let’s talk about expectations, because right about now I’m expecting Megan Draper to get killed.
The Cold War Is Never Far Behind: A Review Of Elliott Holt’s “You Are One Of Them”
Jason Diamond reviews Elliott Holt’s debut novel on trying to find closure that’s mixed with a healthy dose of Cold War-era intrigue and paranoia.
A Guy On Mad Men: Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (S6/E8, “The Better Half”)
After last week’s tour de something that left half of all Mad Men fans wondering what the hell just happened, and the other half digging through the rubble to try and find some little artifact or writing on the wall that foreshadows what will be, we have a return to as close to normal as the show gets.