Afternoon Bites: Welles and Kafka, David Berman on The Minus Times, Recapping ATP, and More

An anthology collecting the zine The Minus Times has been released by featherproof and Drag City. David Berman interviewed editor Hunter Kennedy about the project for BOMB. Sheila Heti chatted with Tin House. Christopher Weingarten looks back at the weekend’s NYC debut of the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival. The Quietus revisits Orson Welles’s adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial. The Los Angeles Times on reader recommendations. Sam Prekop took Pitchfork through his listening history. Conversational Reading is doing a group read of William Gass’s novel […]

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Morning Bites: Gay Writers Who Changed America, Geoff Dyer, Kraftwerk In New York, And More

  Kraftwerk will play a residency at MoMA in April.  Gallerist has a slideshow of some classic photos of the German band. Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, and other gay writers who changed America. Geoff Dyer talks to Guernica about his latest book, Zona. Lincoln Michel breaks down some Kafka. Chloe Caldwell remembers falling in love with New York at The Rumpus. Just so you know, Dave Mustaine didn’t formally endorse Rick Santorum. Follow Vol. 1 Brooklyn on Twitter, Facebook, Google + and our Tumblr.

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Morning Bites: Richard Hell, Bram Stoker’s diary, Blake Butler on the radio, old soccer balls, and more

Richard Hell’s memoir is acquired by Ecco.  It will be titled I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp.  You know somebody at Ecco is slapping themselves and saying, “Why couldn’t he have just called it “Some (Other) Kids” or something like that?”  (Thanks Bryan Waterman for the tip.) The private journals of Bram Stoker have been found.  I guess you can call them The Real Vampire Diaries. Blake Butler talks about insomnia on the Brian Lehrer show. A more […]

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Elif Batuman is on Fire

Posted by Jason Diamond Or: Elif Batuman: Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop. If I had to pick one part of her article in today’s New York Times Magazine, “Kafka’s Last Trial,”  this is definitely is it: “They say the papers will be safer in Germany, the Germans will take very good care of them. Well, the Germans don’t have a very good history of taking care of Kafka’s things. They didn’t take good care of his sisters.” He fell silent. “I […]

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No Matter What Decision Israel Makes About the Franz Kafka Papers, it Will Probably be Wrong

As a fan of literature, I feel comfortable saying that whatever the court in Israel decides to do with the secret Franz Kafka papers will probably be the wrong decision.  I’m not basing that on the fact that Israel makes bad decisions all the time (they do), I’m basing my opinion on the fact that there was probably a very good reason why Kafka didn’t ever want his papers to see the light of day, and that’s why he wanted […]

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