Columns – Page 10 – Vol. 1 Brooklyn

The Zinophile: After the Radiator Hospital Show, Zines

January 30, 2014 No Comments

Radiator Hospital made one of my favorite albums of 2013, Something Wild. Earlier this month, I saw them for the first time at Glasslands. It was a terrific show, incredibly catchy and energetic; I’ve described Radiator Hospital’s music to a few friends as finding a good space somewhere between The Weakerthans and The Microphones, and that aesthetic was definitely present on the night I saw them. After the show, I went over to the merch table to see what they […]

Columns, The Reading Life

The Reading Life: The City as Itself

January 27, 2014 No Comments

I don’t understand people who don’t like to go to the movies alone. I try to do it as much as possible. To explain why I like it so much, I would have to make a list of every time it has made me feel better (or, more accurately, made me feel something instead of something else), and that would be a very long list, a maddeningly digressive list that would have no argument or arc, no single thread or […]

Columns, tobyreads

#tobyreads: Poems & Essays from Ackerson-Kiely & Myles & Dubus & Beard

January 24, 2014 No Comments

Last summer, Vol.1 took part in a day-long literary event in Prospect Heights, called Popsickle, which brought together readers chosen by a number of literary outlets. Among those reading for us was the Vermont-based poet Paige Ackerson-Kiely. Impressed by what I’d heard her read, I ended up picking up her collection My Love is a Dead Arctic Explorer. Reading it, I found myself saying, “Oh my God” in the middle of many a poem; it’s resonated with me in a way […]

Poetry in Motion

Poetry in Motion: Highlights from Vol. 1 Brooklyn’s NFC-AFC Championship Live Blog

January 21, 2014 No Comments

Welcome. Introducting our panel of annual analysts: Climp Bators (Pigskin Warthog Online Editor, statistician, sub-par husband) Lash St. Cower (Portland Daily Gazette columnist, senile ex-lover of Eartha Kitt) Rosalind Propecia (on-field interviewer, ESPN Chechnya) Cormac McCarthy (Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Road and All the Pretty Horses, licensed misanthrope) Kegstands-X5 (sentient, artificially intelligent android sent from the future to discuss football) Peaches Malloy (three-time Pro Bowl running back, disgraced infomercial psychic)

Columns, tobyreads

#tobyreads: When Genres Collide

January 17, 2014 No Comments

This week, I had the pleasure of reading four novels — three recent, one older — in which styles and genres that one might not expect to collide are brought together. Sometimes this is ornately constructed; for others, the approach seems to have been to place disparate elements in close proximity and see what emerges.

Books, Columns, Interviews, The Zinophile

The Zinophile: Talking “Things I Told My Mother” With Sarah Gerard

January 16, 2014 No Comments

I first met Sarah Gerard in 2012. Since then, I’ve been consistently impressed by her essays and criticism, and I eagerly picked up her chapbook Things I Told My Mother when it was released late in 2013. It’s an account of a topless walk Gerard took across parts of Manhattan, and it’s concerned with finding a theoretical anchor for this as it is with describing the walk in all of its aspects. Given this and the news that Two Dollar Radio would be […]

Columns, The Reading Life

The Reading Life: Drains and Radiators

January 13, 2014 No Comments

When we talk about other people, my friend Leah and I divide them into two categories: some people are drains, and some are radiators. We do not think, of course, that anyone can be one thing for all people, and we do not assume, of course, total innocence, recognizing that we have been drains ourselves in our most unattractive moments. This method is as helpful as it is limited. But it has become useful shorthand for describing how someone is […]

Columns, tobyreads

#tobyreads: Three Collections, From the Cerebral to the Horrific

January 10, 2014 No Comments

And we’re back. Three collections this week: one memorable selection of essays on artists, one group of realistic stories of cultures intersecting, and one gripping dose of cosmic horror. Stating that I’m a fan of Janet Malcolm’s writing is not exactly a groundbreaking comment, I realize. I was eager to read her newly released nonfiction collection Forty-One False Starts in part because I’ve largely encountered her work at book length; reading more focused examples of her writing was definitely appealing.