Afternoon Bites: A Very Ian MacKaye Birthday, Spencer Ackerman On Catharsis, Melissa Broder Interviewed, And More

Ian MacKaye’s surprise 50th birthday party — revealed! In related news, happy birthday to Ian MacKaye. Spencer Ackerman on zinemaking, Refused, and the influence of the anarcho-punk band Catharsis on his work as a journalist. Junot Diáz on werewolves, film adaptations, New Jersey, and more. Melissa Broder is interviewed by Julia Jackson at The Outlet (and both writers involved will be reading at our event at RAC tomorrow evening.) One of our editors will be reading as part of tonight’s Storychord […]

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Morning Bites: New Junot Díaz, Kurt Cobain Poetry, Virgin Forest on Faulkner, Greatest Superhero Ever, and More

Akashic Books will be releasing a book tribute to Kurt Cobain written by the co-founder of Hole, Eric Erlandson.  Apparently Courtney Love hasn’t given the book her blessing. Junot Díaz will be releasing This Is How You Lose Her, a new collection of short stories on Riverhead in September. You know who the greatest comic book hero is?  Hint: it isn’t Aquaman. Helen Simpson talks to The Paris Review about her collection, In-Flight Entertainment. The guy from Virgin Forest talks about some Faulkner, […]

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Morning Bites: Lost Martin Amis Video Game Masterpiece, Literary Jeremy Lin, Anthony Shadid, And More

    Why the heck would Martin Amis want to distance himself from his 1982 classic Invasion of the Space Invaders? Everybody weighs in on the death of journalist Anthony Shadid. Alexander Chee on “The Jeremy Lin Economy” at The Classical. We aren’t sure if the Lin Economy includes the book deal he’s going to land. The American boosterism of Junot Díaz and Garrison Keillor. Want to look like Juliet from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet?  Rookie tells you how. Joe Fassler at The Atlantic […]

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Morning Bites: Thatcher movie, Bill O’Reilly’s still an idiot, nightcaps, short story problems, and more

Meryl Streep, Margaret Thatcher, and Madness (the band) in one trailer. Here’s a total shocker for you: A Fox News host wrote a book and it’s riddled with factual errors. The libraries of Junot Díaz, James Wood, Gary Shteyngart, and others. Is there a problem with short stories?  Josh Spilker thinks there might be, and he discusses it at Impose.  (Hint: Yelp) If you’re looking for the rules of an honorable nightcap, look no further. Follow Vol. 1 Brooklyn on Twitter, Facebook, and […]

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Morning Bites: Junot Díaz’s next steps, Mailer’s apartment, the “violent left,” Emily Gould on having a side business, and more

Animating Albert Camus. “Even if you’re a big fan of capitalism, you’ll at least concede that its greatest strength is probably not its capacity to reward artistic virtue fairly.” – Emily Gould on writers and other artists branching out, and trying to find other avenues to make money. More Jonathan Franzen essays on the way. Junot Díaz gives some insight as to what his next novel will be about. They’re having quite the hard time selling Norman Mailer’s Brooklyn Heights […]

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Band Booking: Cave Singers

Posted by Tobias Carroll Since their debut, 2007’s Invitation Songs, Seattle’s Cave Singers have quietly created their own musical space: Pete Quirk’s impossibly world-weary vocals; Derek Fudesco’s precisely played guitar; Marty Lund’s drumming veering somewhere between punk rock and a far-off dancefloor. This year brings their third album, No Witch, a stylistic and textural expansion of their sound: it contains both their loudest work and their most intimate. Via email, Lund and I discussed tour reading materials, Keith Richards, and […]

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Junot Díaz Steals From Rick Moody

No, seriously,  he admits it over at Book Bench. Each of the family members is explicitly linked to one of the Four—Oscar is the Thing, Abelard is Mr. Fantastic, Belicia is the Invisible Woman, and Lola is the Human Torch—something I stole from Rick Moody’s incomparable novel “The Ice Storm.” Who else “steals”?

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