On this Thanksgiving, Glen E. Friedman tells you to celebrate the holiday with a little reality check. We will oblige. Long before Jonathan Safran Foer wrote a book about it, “vegetarianism was a Victorian ‘lifestyle’ with several vegetarian restaurants in London in the late century“. The Faster Times review Safran Foer’s latest book, and call it “a real downer.” For all you carnivores out there, The Young and Hungry have their turkey, and Felicia Sullivan has a chocolate caramel cheesecake […]
Just Saying: Philip Glass and Charles Manson
1. Article in the Wall Street Journal on Philip Glass is pretty wonderful, but I gotta say, there is a pretty large school of people that would argue the claim that to “anyone familiar with his music, Philip Glass is the original Minimalist.” I’ll agree that Phil is definitely one of the original minimalists, but not the original one. 2. You wake up one day, and not only do you find out you are Charles Manson’s son, but some douchebag […]
When Oral Sex in the Shtetl Goes Horribly Wrong
Over at Tablet, a story that could be something like a b-movie, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Pretty in Pink, all rolled into one. A young girl from the wrong side of the tracks, a guy named Feivel Goldschwartz gets engaged to a girl named Ruzhe Shulkleynot; he breaks it off because she’s poor, then she bites off half of his penis in front of a whorehouse as revenge.
Billy Childish Saturday
Talking about why he left the Stuckists.
Bites: Willy Loman Gets Some Respect, Gladwell Writes a Letter, Chomsky’s Eye, Beth Ditto as a Hero, Oprah Fucks Over the Book Industry, and More
“He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being”. Actually Linda Loman, I think in regards to your husband, it’s the other way around. According to this list, your husband Willy stands alongside The Wandering Jew, Betty Boop, and Shylock as the 100 most influential people who never lived. Lit. Gore Vidal rips William F. Buckley. No response from Buckley, because he’s dead. Leo Tolstoy is also dead. Today is the anniversary of him dying. Malcolm […]
Recipes for Literature: Clam Chowder for Whaling with Spicy Pork Sausage
By Cara Nicoletti In the opening chapters of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, Ishmael spends his final nights before setting sail aboard the Pequod at the Spouter Inn preparing for his years-long journey at sea. Part of such preparation includes readying oneself for the inevitable periods of dullness and isolation from the rest of the world’s news, finances, friends, and families. This feeling of isolation in which “you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the […]
Congrats to “Unfriend” on Winning 2009 Word of the Year!
Seriously “unfriend”, you really earned it. Obviously we are a little bit upset that you beat out of personal favorite, “zombie bank“, but it’s fine, we understand, you’re a winner. Hashtag, funemployed, and teabagger also considered, but losers. Gawker calls the whole thing “a huge scam“. NPR gets about as excited as NPR can get.
Video Obsession: Helado Negro, “Playas”
I think if we just listen to this song from December to March, we won’t even think about winter. Healdo Negro’s Awe Owe came out on Asthmatic Kitty in August, and we haven’t stopped listening to it since.