Malcolm Gladwell The internet is a-twitter with three things this morning: the anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the health care bill, and Maureen Tkacik’s Nation piece, “Malcolm Gladwell for Dummies.” HTMLGIANT’s Justin Taylor sees the essay as more than just a piece on Gladwell, but also “worth looking at…in light of [the] ongoing discussion of what good criticism can or should look like.” The Millions wonders if this is “a tipping point for Gladwell haters.” Berlin Wall […]
Bites: Book Review Highlights, Kakutani Two-Step, Required Reading, the Millennials, and Why Our Media is Getting Scolded
Celebrated artist of the female form, Peter Paul Rubens, was “a man of controlled appetites, with a modest disposition and a reputation for tact and discretion.” He was also a diplomat, spy, and peace-maker, according to Mark Lamster’s new book “Master of Shadows.” Other Book Review Highlights: A history, slightly obsessive, of Strunk & White’s little style book.(NYT) Michael Chabon’s new essays: “First Person Masculine”?(NYT) Has anyone else noticed that James Joyce has been tryin’ to change a lot of […]
Two hundred grand will buy you the weirdest night of your life
Just imagine, you could eat a dinner “scheduled at your convenience on a Monday between February and June 2010, in Manhattan” with Malcolm Gladwell, the priest from Footloose, and that blessed lady who wrote all those romantic comedies we aren’t ashamed to admit we love. The whole shebang will only set you back $200,000 dollars. And listen, we won’t fault you if you got the cash, it’s totally fine. Just make sure you include the stipulation that the freakshow needs […]
Gigantic gets a pretty new website
They hipped us on Gary Shteyngart’s love of smoked meats, featured an in-depth conversation between Tao Lin and Malcolm Gladwell, and pretty much just blew our minds with their first issue. Now, the folks at Gigantic are staking their claim on the interweb with a pretty new website that has art from New York Times Magazine featured artist Thomas Doyle, Shya Scanlon’s latest installment of his internet-serialized novel Forecast and new fiction from J.A. Tyler. Go check it out here.
Bites: Bill and Malcolm, Les Paul, punk rock names, McSweeney’s likes prog rock, and more
I read one of the same blogs as Bill Clinton? Cool! Bill Clinton likes Malcolm Gladwell? Okay… That’s cool too! (I think?) I think if Largehearted Boy was meant to ask anybody their playlist, it would have to be the founder of Gigposters.com, Clay Hayes. Today he did just that. Yeh, we aren’t crazy about guns either. Chicago Sun Times on the passing of Les Paul. Carrie Brownstein of Monitor Mix on “Punk Rock Monikers“ You should always care about […]
Bites: Decent thoughts on today’s fiction (I know!), Bruni is replaced, Gladwell’s Mockingbird, Kubrick’s unmade work, middle-class “slave labor”
By Willa A. Cmiel Lee Seigel for the Washington Post on the End of the Episode. It’s a greatly informed, well-put essay on changes in American fiction. (Finally a good essay on contemporary fiction. Seigel is critical but not raging, constructive but unassuming): “Are you a Narrative or Episodic personality?… Or do you think that you live, like Huck Finn and every other picaresque hero, from isolated minute to isolated minute – episode to episode – and that far from adding […]
Bites: Brittney vs. MJ, Ira Glass deals poker, Bjork spins, RIP Vibe I never read you,
SMITH Mag’s six-word obituaries for Michael Jackson vs. Vultures Britney Spears – haiku contest. I wasn’t creative enough to do either. Is it your dream to play some poker with Ira Glass, David Cross, and Michael Ian Black? Well, here is your chance, and it goes to benefit 826NYC. DJ Bjork Malcolm Gladwell reviews Free by Chris Anderson for the New Yorker If I’m gonna read one sports book this summer, it will probably be be Satchel: The Life and […]