Opium joins McSweeney’s, Featherproof, and whoever else we are forgetting to mention in the category of “lit publications with iPhone apps”. Todd Zuniga talked to Jacket Copy about his mags new use of technology. JC: Is the Opium app addictive? TZ: In a word: absolutely. Opium publishes fantastic, bite-sized gems every day (next week we’ll showcase 250-Word Bookmark Contest finalists — an estimated reading time no longer than one minute and 20 seconds). So there’ll always be something new to […]
Bites: New American Stories, New Nabokov is “Not a Novel”, Literary Journals as News Sources, Air Waves at Daytrotter, and More
Maud Newton talked about it in early November, but this recently posted review on Becoming Americans: Four Centuries of Immigration (Library of America), had a quote I liked. Gary Shteyngart falls in love with cereal for the “unprecedented miracle” of toy prizes: “It tastes the way America feels. . . . . Something for nothing.” Lit. “The first thing you need to know about this new Nabokov thing is that it is not a novel.” — Ward Six. “In an ongoing effort to […]
Bites: Big Screen Risk, Blossoming Literary Bromance, Vonnegut Makeover, Folks Covering Punks, Doomsday FAIL, and More
Little known fact: The editors of this site are huge fans of the board game Risk. We aren’t totally sure how we feel about a movie adaptation starring the Fresh prince of Bel-Air though. Lit. The Faster Times takes a look at McSweeney’s taking a stab at making a newspaper. Three Guys One Book really, really like The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats by Hesh Kestin, but they don’t have a crush on the author. Colin Meloy of the band […]
Bites: Stephen Elliott in Williamsburg, McSweeney’s Broadsheet, the Original Gossip Girl, Lethem Recommends Poe, Balloon boy FAQ, and more
Stephen Elliott hung out in Williamsburg (went hard, if you will) and wrote about it on The Rumpus. Lit. Largehearted Boy reviews Nick Hornby’s Juliet, Naked. McSweeney’s to publish an old-fashioned, Sunday edition-sized broadsheet: San Francisco Panorama Jonathan Lethem recommends on Daily Beast Edgar Allen Poe’s only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and describes it as “the missing link between Mary Shelley and Herman Melville.” My kind of narrative. On Willa Cather’s development as a novelist. […]
Wholphin #9 preview
Not shocking that there is so much Spike Jonze stuff on this one, since I’m guessing he and Eggers are probably attached at the hip these days. Naturally this is all very good stuff, as all of the Wholphin series seem to be. All the info (courtesy of McSweeney’s e mail robot), is after the trailer. Wholphin No 9 features three, hilarious, never-before-seen short films by Spike Jonze; Joseph Gordon-Levitts adaptation of Elmore Leonards short story, “Sparks,” starring Carla Gugino […]
Bites: The last Nobel mentions (maybe…), libraries in trouble, browsing, new Tom Waits, Mussolini working for the Brits, and more
One final Nobel link roundup. The New Yorker on President Obama’s “Nobel surprise“. N+1 says: “The peace prize’s reputation makes it a powerful tool. It’s not always the right tool, and it’s not always effective, but it’s good to have around.” “Herta who?” Drama over the economics Nobel winner? Lit. Dave Eggers, Jay Leno, and Roger Ebert. What do they all have in common? They are all in a book talking about their favorite childhood books. Over at McSweeney’s, a […]
Bites: Libba Bray steals our hearts with a song, Poe’s dead date, Obama’s book, Brooklyn cliches, and more
Breaking! Libba Bray picks “Roadrunner” by The Modern Lovers as one of her songs in her turn at Largehearted Boy’s “Book Notes”. This makes us like her even more. Lit. Last night saw Thurston Moore reading Naked Lunch to a packed house at St. Marks Church. Next we find the Sonic Youth leader starting a publishing company. The Desk Set talk about rare book librarians. Yesterday was the 160th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s death. We failed by not […]
Another reason to covet your friends technology
My really expensive text message machine just died the other day, and since I have to spend two months in flip-phone hell, I might just spoil myself and get an iPhone solely for the fact that now there is a fricken McSweeney’s app. One week you might receive a story from the upcoming Quarterly, the next week an interview from the Believer, the next a short film from a future Wholphin. Occasionally, it might be a song, an art portfolio, […]