Today would have been the 65th birthday of Keith Moon. He was the greatest rock drummer ever. Period. Darin Strauss on faith at the Jewish Book Council blog. Tao Lin interviews Ben Lerner at The Believer. There is talk of declawing cats. Bernard-Henri Lévy is feeling pretty good about Libya right now. Especially since he was so instrumental in getting his country to intervene in the fighting. Caryn Rose’s B-Sides and Broken Hearts gets reviewed. Funny guy Nick Kroll teaches […]
Short Review: Public Enemies by Bernard-Henri Lévy and Michel Houellbecq
Posted by Jason Diamond Public Enemies by Bernard-Henri Lévy and Michel Houellbecq Random House, 2011 I put Public Enemies down after 100 pages of admitting to myself that I really didn’t care about Bernard-Henri Lévy and Michel Houellbecq writing letters to each other. The whole thing was really boring, and I was waiting for the part where Lévy wrote saying, “Michel, we should stop all this foolishness. I will take you shopping for white shirts, and then we can make […]
Everything You Ever Cared to Know About the Correspondence Between Bernard-Henri Lévy and Michel Houellebecq
At Tablet, Barry Gewen gets it just two words over 2000 trying to explain Public Enemies, the book of correspondence between French novelist Michel Houellebecq and philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy.
Pee-Wee Herman on Bernard-Henri Lévy
Posted by Jason Diamond “BTW, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy looks an awful lot like my friend Eric Idle. Here’s one for you, Bernie, “I know you are, but what am I?” Or am I?” (Via Huffington Post)
Weekend Bites: Cocteau Cult, The Salinger Plan, Intellectual War, Shteyngart’s Free Food, Playboy Cartoons, and More
The cult of Cocteau Want to try being like J.D. Salinger? Don’t pay taxes, tweet, or keep the same e-mail address. If that doesn’t work, just freak out about tiny things. A Ticket to the Circus, Norris Church Mailer’s memoirs about seeing Norman Mailer in the nude, is reviewed. I think I’ve already made up my mind on this one. Good book people on Twitter. On Gary Shteyngart and food. Gahn Wilson’s Playboy cartoons get the book treatment. Intellectual feud: […]
Kant Win
Sorry, I had to use that as the subject after reading this: “When France’s most dashing philosopher took aim at Immanuel Kant in his latest book, calling him “raving mad” and a “fake”, his observations were greeted with the usual adulation. To support his attack, Bernard-Henri Lévy — a showman-penseur known simply by his initials, BHL — cited the little-known 20th-century thinker Jean-Baptiste Botul. There was one problem: Botul was invented by a journalist in 1999 as an elaborate joke, […]
Bites: L Mag Dislikes Tao Lin, Depressing Books, Rewrite of The Prince, the Polanski Problem, Chicago, Ahmadinejad, Conde Nast, and more
L Magazine wouldn’t like Tao Lin. Apparently only two people came to one of Lin’s readings at a bookstore in California, and the tiny magazine rejoiced. To contrast, here is what Vol. 1 has said about Lin’s latest novel and publishing imprint. Lit. The Top 10 Most Depressing Books. Another list, The National Book Foundation’s “Top 5 Under 35.” The Millions has a charming essay about one writer’s experience at an artist’s retreat in Wyoming. The Millions, also, interviewed Tao […]