Morning Bites: Orwell’s Birthday, Jennifer Miller, Sunny Jim Joyce, Berlin Dispatches, and More

George Orwell was born on this day in 1903. How our favorite Scottish tennis star is like a character in a Kinks song. “James was the favorite of his charming, cantankerous, and dissolute father, John Stanislaus Joyce, and was adored by his brothers and sisters. They called him Sunny Jim, because he laughed at everything.” – Louis Menand at The New Yorker on James Joyce’s chance encounters. Al Burian’s dispatches from Berlin. Jennifer Miller talks to The Rumpus. Paul Theroux […]

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Morning Bites: Murakami and Sam Anderson, Tintin, naked parties, George Saunders, and more

Sam Anderson and Haruki Murakami hanging out, doing stuff and whatnot. George Saunders talks to The New Yorker about his story in this week’s issue, Tenth of December. “[H]e was what you’d get if you combined Walter Cronkite with Colonel Sanders. He had his eccentricities. At his Cape Cod summer houses he liked to throw nude cocktail parties that often ended in unexpected couplings amid the dunes.” – Dwight Macdonald and his new “greatest-hits assemblage,” Masscult And Midcult: Essays Against the […]

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Christmas Eve Soundtrack

Fucked Up – “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” King Diamond – “No Presents for Christmas” The Sonics – “Don’t Believe in Christmas” The Kinks – “Father Christmas” The Pogues – “Fairytale in New York” Brenda Lee – “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” The Fall – “No Christmas for John Quays”

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The Kinks, the “British Way,” and America in the 00’s

By Jason Diamond The Kinks (from 1964 to 1972) are untouchable, and their name should always be mentioned with the same respect as The Beatles or The Stones. Of course, while I love Village Green Preservation Society just as much as any other person with a heart, my favorite album is 1969’s Arthur (Or the Decline of the British Empire). This record is the apex of Ray Davies’ masterful songwriting, his most biting critique of the “British way of life.” […]

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