Poetry in Motion: The Merciless Boxing of Fat City, or John Huston: A Love Song

I first saw John Huston’s 1972 slobber-knocker Fat City at Film Forum a few years ago. As I sat in the dark, I began to wince. Not at the film’s oft-brutal boxing scenes, which while not as spurting in its bloodletting as Raging Bull still manages to treat its fighters like slaughterhouse corpses. I began to wince because unbeknownst to me, I was developing a rather vicious eye infection known as an acanthamoeba, which is a fancy way of saying […]

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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 […]

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