The Coen bros are closer to making True Grit a reality. From The Awl: “It’s safe to say that Eggers is currently the most detested man in American haute-literary circles.” Remember that time a bunch of people wanted to kill Salman Rushdie? He’s gonna write a book about it. Dennis Cooper on Justin Taylor. L Magazine reviews Taylor’s Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever. A literary mystery spot at Lit Kicks. Where all all the Jews in John Hughes’ […]
Bites: L Mag Dislikes Tao Lin, Depressing Books, Rewrite of The Prince, the Polanski Problem, Chicago, Ahmadinejad, Conde Nast, and more
L Magazine wouldn’t like Tao Lin. Apparently only two people came to one of Lin’s readings at a bookstore in California, and the tiny magazine rejoiced. To contrast, here is what Vol. 1 has said about Lin’s latest novel and publishing imprint. Lit. The Top 10 Most Depressing Books. Another list, The National Book Foundation’s “Top 5 Under 35.” The Millions has a charming essay about one writer’s experience at an artist’s retreat in Wyoming. The Millions, also, interviewed Tao […]
Bites: The homosexual undertones of Harry Potter, Atlas Sound and Panda Bear destroy indie, Salman Rushdie and Thomas Pynchon eating dinner together
Gawker on “The Homosexual Undertones of Harry Potter“. Worth it just for the picture, and the line “Alan Rickman looks like a New Wave lesbian in a cape.” There should be a law against Atlas Sound and Panda Bear (of Animal Collective) colaborating on this song, it’s really not fair to everybody else (except maybe Woods). The new Atlas Sound album, Logos, in October on Kranky. On the flipside of that, not so sure how I feel about Death Cab […]
Bites: Salman Rushdie as a tiny dancer, pictures of Berlin, John Updike maybe turning in his grave, and the party album of the summer?
“She had heels on, so he only came up to her breasts,” laughs our source. “With her low-cut dress and his bald head, when he’s dancing with her he looks like her third boob.” The above quote was about Salman Rushdie; acclaimed writer, Fatwa dodger, and a man who is not afraid to dance with a taller woman Berlin photo essay @ Impose “Updike was the consummate stylist with a blogger mentality” according to Slate. Is this an insult? Chuck […]
The Fatwa’s Forgotten
This past Saturday marked, besides St. Hallmark’s Day, the 20th anniversary of the Rushdie affair during which Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued the most famous modern-day literary death sentence, a fatwa upon the head of British writer Salman Rushdie for his allegedly blasphemous novel The Satanic Verses. Khomeini’s issuance of the fatwa was a turning point for the Western world in terms of free speech and the possible impact of art derived from post-colonial democracies. The order for the life of […]