Since its publication in 1973, Thomas Pynchon’s acclaimed novel Gravity’s Rainbow has been a marvel of verbiage which has delighted and perplexed all who dare crack its pages. Most startling of all are new revelations that some of the book’s most artful and curious phrases bare striking parallels to the inner life of Lebron James, a twenty-eight year old professional basketball sensation who has been named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player four times, yet has hosted the ESPY Awards only […]
The Same Vines Twice: An Interview with Donald Breckenridge, Fiction Editor of The Brooklyn Rail
Donald Breckenridge has served as the fiction editor of The Brooklyn Rail since 2001. In addition he is the author of several novels, including You Are Here, 6/2/95, This Young Girl Passing, and Rockaway Wherein. His latest invention is the second volume of The Brooklyn Rail Fiction Anthology. This second helping of the Rail‘s fiction section is that rare collection that is joyfully archival: a work which genuinely spans the globe. It is a dusty-fingered, crypt-cracking dossier of stories that conjure laughter, […]
Poetry in Motion: Yankees, Red Sox, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake, Graham Greene, and the Impending Apocalypse
On Saturday night I attended a game at Yankees Stadium, between the local pinstriped and the visiting Boston Red Sox. It was an infinitely more engaging, pleasurable and humane version of a war reenactment, or a spirited salon. In this bloodbath, more of arms than wits, the Red Sox trounced the Yanks by the criminal score of 11-1. This slaughter began with a grand slam from Sox first basemen Mike Napoli, who at press time may have one of the […]
Poetry in Motion: Canadian Hockey Icon, or Experimental French Writer?
In our continuing unification of the sporting life with that of the bookish, bespectacled square, we bring you our initial foray into the wide world of hockey. Anglo-Norman facial features of the ruggedly handsome were interchangeable between some of the NHL’s all-time greats and some of the most smarty-pants of intellectuals that 1960s France had to offer. Do you think you have what it takes to tell who’s who simply from out of context photos of questionable origin? Play along, […]
Poetry in Motion: Hunter S. Thompson and Jessica Simpson Make Love at the Kentucky Derby
I will try to keep this from reading like one of those “Walking Talking Working Class” petri dish disasters penned by Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, or Maureen Dowd: three “social animals” who receive disdainful glances from their cleaning ladies, then deem that scorn a flesh-eating bacteria devouring the American Dream. But fair warning: I’m fighting the urge to tell you all about the Great American Dive Bar – a Bushwick basin called The Cobra Club – from which I watched […]
A Guy Watching Mad Men: You Maniacs, You Blew It Up (S6/E5, “The Flood”)
When Mad Men covers big history, it’s a dual-edged sword: while often touching to see how they face elections, assassinations, and the culture of the day, it can also play as a reenactment at Plymouth Plantation. After forty-two minutes and change about the week of Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination, I wished I was filling in for recaps on one of the nights in which this show is about issues of bed-and-barroom deceit and betrayal, those of sex, liquor, and […]
Poetry in Motion: What to Read Based on Who You’re Rooting For in the NBA Playoffs (Eastern Conference Round-Up)
Another day, another half of America’s finest sports league. In the conclusion of V1’s two-part preview of this year’s NBA playoffs, we turn to the readily-dismissed Eastern Conference, whose top seeds have emerged as contenders amidst a field of lower-hanging fruit and also-rans. Yet devoted fans of all eight squads will be pleased to know that we’ve got great reading recommendations custom-made for each crew. Whether your team of choice is one and done or going all the way, you’ll […]
Poetry in Motion: What to Read Based on Who You’re Rooting For in the NBA Playoffs (Western Conference Edition)
In part one of a two-part preview of this year’s NBA playoffs, we look at the league’s Western Conference, oft-considered superior to its Eastern counterpart. But the book recommendations? Whoa Nelly, those will be top shelf on both sides of the court!