Your tax dollars at work: the State Department is sending Andrew W.K. to the Middle East to promote peace. We’re entirely behind this idea, for what it’s worth. (Update: apparently, the trip is off.) Mara Tatar on Philip Pullman’s retold fairy tales. Ta-Nehisi Coates examines Raymond Chandler, Alfred Hitchcock, and misogyny. Dylan Nice chatted with The Collagist. Gabrielle Gantz on Sina Grace’s Not My Bag. Pete Astor is interviewed about his forthcoming Richard Hell-centric 33 1/3. Juliana Nash’s murder ballad playlist. […]