by Willa A. Cmiel For as much as we like to talk about and link to zombies here at Vol. 1, I really think the trend is, to put it nicely, pretty silly. To be truly frank, I actually find it immensely, offensively, near-tragically awful. (It’s true that I’ve written about this before.) Historically, zombie mythology originated in West Indian Voodoo lore, and was taken and misinterpreted by Western society (Night of the Living Dead). And then we took it […]
The No-Ricky’s Answer to Your Halloween Costume Needs
So, lit-minded reader, did you find yourself once again costume-less on Halloween day, even though you’ve been planning to hit up some parties?
Weekend Bites, The Frightening Edition: Keats Misdiagnosed?, the Penis as Literary Device, ScarJo to Rape Arthur Miller’s Work, Truths in Ghostbusters, and Why M&M’s Might As Well Be Crack
Happy Halloween! In honor of the spooky holiday, Vol.1 has collected some particularly frightening Bites, ranging from the traditionally fun-filled, the absolutely outraging, and the sadly serious. Lit. Did medical malpractice lead to the death of John Keats, leaving the poet starving and anguished? Wait, isn’t that what poets are definitively? After losing his own book deal, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford praises Ayn Rand. In a review of Alistair Morgan’s Sleeper’s Wake, The Rumpus expostulates on the penis as […]
Recipes for Literature: Viv Stamper’s Maple-Buttered Baked Apples With Candied Pecans
By Cara Nicoletti Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion is a sprawling epic chronicling the lives of a logging family in Wakonda, Oregon. Complete with deep-seated brotherly hatred, savage revenge plots, repressed silences and Oedipal lust, there is hardly a bleaker, more raw look into family dysfunction and hard-headed stubbornness. The only moments of relief from the stream of heartache and cold, beating rain come when the Stamper family is gathered around the table. The Stamper men wake up in […]
Bites: PEN’s Spelling Bee, Fitzgerald’s Taxes, Whitman’s Jeans, Obama the Comic, France Hates Scientology, and more
Last night at Le Poisson Rouge, some of New York’s biggest writers got together for a spelling bee to benefit PEN American center’s literary journal, PEN America and the release of their eleventh issue, “Make Believe.” Lit. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tax returns.(Thanks, The Rumpus) Whoa, another e-reader from Barnes & Noble? I’m totally confused. Today, we’re tackling e-readers and book reading, I guess. First, Book Bench with Bruce McCalls’ new book Fifty Things to do with a Book (Now that […]
Bites: Media Battles (Ever-Present), Franco’s Face, Humility as ‘Sin,’ Tony Judt, and the Bad News For Big Business
New Media, Old Media, and E-readers Barnes and Noble’s e-reader, the Nook, looks promising as Kindle competitor (and book sharing device!). The Rumpus’ account of last week’s New Yorker Festival is titled “James Franco’s Face.” Jacket Copy suggests that because their paper gave Le Clézio’s Désert a bad review, that the Nobel Prize in Literature is becoming “esoteric” and “wrong-headed.” Ugh, close-minded print newspaper. And now to take back the above statement about print media back with Harper’s lovely “Blake–To […]
Bites: Brown Interviews Philip Roth, Publishing, the Internet, Wallace Shawn, Pastrami Sandwiches, and more
Daily Beast innovator, Tina Brown, interviews Philip Roth. Watch it. Lit., Publishing, and the Internet Richard Nash on the “Continuous Permanent Reinvention of Publishing.“(via The Rumpus) The novels of Rand and Nader, in comparison. Emdashes on Wallace Shawn and John Lehr in conversation for the New Yorker festival. A Conversation About the Internet, created by The Rumpus. Tao Lin reads…signs. How we live and breathe marketing. Misc. So we’re clear: Baby Einstein will not make you a baby Einstein. Forget […]
Online Comic Strip Figures Out Zombie-Lit Phenomenon
Turns out, it’s the boys who are to blame! Because the girls totally get it. Unshelved is an online comic book set in a public library. Every Sunday for “Book Club,” they publish a guest post, which features a different book every week. This week, Pride and Prejudice. Are zombies involved? Sea monsters?, one character wonders. No way!, says the other. Vol. 1 has discussed the zombie-lit trend in the past–more than once, in fact–and plans to continue doing so […]