By Jason Diamond My Nana and Papa lived in a condominium complex called Winston Towers, located in the in the Rogers Park neighborhood, right near where you could say Chicago either begins or ends, as the city of Evanston and the North Shore is a few blocks away. The series of buildings is well-known among many who grew up in the surrounding suburbs as “Cabrini Greenberg” for its large number of middle aged and senior Jewish occupants. Looking back, […]
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: Natalie Portman Likes Jonathan Safran Foer’s Book, NY Times Likes Electric Literature, Ames Kvetching on Twitter, The Watson Twins, and more
Natalie Portman went vegan thanks to Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book, Eating Animals. She writes about it for Huff Po. Makes the confusing statement, “I don’t believe in rape, but if it’s what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it.” Lit. New York Times give mad props to Electric Literature. A Sherlock Holmes handbook. Maybe a good gift for Robert Downey Jr.? (Thanks Mental Floss) Rick Moody and a parkway in Connecticut. Jonathan Ames kvetches on […]
Warning: The Bookstore Cat of the Week Lives in a Record Store
I was bumming around Academy Records in Williamsburg, contemplating dropping 30 bucks on either the first pressing of Tigermilk (on Jeepster) or some Terry Riley record I probably didn’t need, but wanted anyway. Then, suddenly, my eyes turned to the little dreamboat prancing on top of all the records. I asked Caleb (head honcho of the phenomenal Sacred Bones record label) who that four-legged record nerd was, and he replied “that’s Tigger”. So my thinking here is this: since the […]
Bites: Mobycons, Gaiman’s Twitter, The Road, Bo Diddley’s beat, and more
Some guy at NYU “intends to turn all 6,438 sentences of the great Herman Melville (Moby-Dick)opus into Japanese Emoji, rather picturesque emoticons that are on most handsets in Japan.” Lit. Lit Drift talks about Neil Gaiman’s Twitter fiction contest. Melville House named best small press of the year! Maud Newton talks R. Crumb and Chick tract’s. Featherproof Books has an iPhone app. (thanks The Scowl) The Millions gives us a comedic translation of The Road. L Magazine talks to writer […]
When Nerd Battles Go Both Wrong and Right at the Same Time
On Monday night, Vol. 1 Brooklyn presented the first Battle of the New York Nerds. We thought “hey, this will be a nice way to settle the north vs. south Brooklyn battle with the help of two great local independent media crews”: Overflow Magazine and Greenpoint Gazette. Good times were indeed had, but it was such a hotly contested outcome with the score being 22 to 22 3/4ths (in Greenpoint Gazette’s favor) that immediately after the event, our judges James […]
Conversation: Aaron Lake Smith talks to Sam McPheeters
Sooner or later, there is going to be a definitive book on the 90’s punk rock scene, and when that time comes, there really needs to be at least a chapter on Sam McPheeters. The guy was a member of what in my mind is one of the greatest bands of all time, Born Against, then started the extremely underrated Men’s Recovery Project, ran the now defunct Vermiform Records, and he’s a great visual artist to boot (see above, Google […]
Coming up: The Soapbox Reading Series Presented by Electric Literature
We have been pretty much been a fan of just about everything Electric Literature has done so far. I mean how can’t you be? Did you bother to read this thing they wrote about Thomas Pynchon that references Bob Dylan and David Foster Wallace? Did you see their stuff on Youtube? Did you pick up their book? We did, and we like all of the stuff we mentioned, so we will be taking a field trip to Washington Square Park […]