Posted by Nick Curley Scrolling lists with eye-popping headlines are the mango-on-the-stick of the fruit vending cart that is literary journalism. “T.S. Eliot’s Ten Girthiest Erections”. “Grad Programs in Order of Proximity to Good Burritos”. “Super Starred: The Coolest Footnotes of All Time”. And those are just the freebies that I’m firing off at will! Pop culture countdowns are notorious among bloggers for their ability to rack up that handful of extra Web 2.0 followers that will pull us all […]
Bites: Beer with ‘Bama, blue M&Ms, Gawker is Gold(man Sachs), Muumuu House is noted, fake local Starbucks protests, etc.
DRINKS AT OBAMA’S THIS THURSDAY. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is in charge of the beer run, taking orders. (Is anything else important today? Not really, but in case of boredom read on.) There are two kinds of people in the world: those who separate M&Ms based on color and those who don’t. Always firmly in the latter group, I was forced briefly to question my firm stance upon learning that the food dye used in blue M&M’s can mend spinal […]
“Dangerous” Choices in Ugly Man by Jonathan Reiss
Reviewed by Jonathan Reiss According to the back cover of Dennis Cooper’s new book of short stories, Cooper is “the most dangerous writer in America.” What constitutes a dangerous writer? The Catcher in the Rye has been banned on and off by schools and libraries since its publication and was cited by Mark David Chapman as his reason for killing John Lennon, despite the fact that the book isn’t even about killing rock stars. In Ugly Man, the majority of […]