Bites: Obama reading “Lush Life”,a Dutch girl who just wants to sail, Turkish books, social networking for nerds, and more

A personal hero of mine, Steve Martin, is hitting the road with his banjo in tow.  (Thanks Brooklyn Vegan) Obama is sitting on the beach reading Lush Life.  Holy crap, I was going to start reading that too!  We have so much in common! Damn you Netherlands!  Why on earth would you want to stop a 13-year-old girl from experiencing a magical adventure like sailing across the world by herself?  (Thanks Boing Boing) Over at Litkicks, Levi Asher picks six […]

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Bites: Obama reading “Lush Life,” a Dutch girl who just wants to sail, Turkish books, social networking for nerds, and more

A personal hero of mine is hitting the road with his banjo in tow.  (Thanks Brooklyn Vegan) Obama is sitting on the beach reading Lush Life.  Holy crap, I was going to start reading that too!  We have so much in common! Damn you Netherlands!  Why on earth would you want to stop a 13-year-old girl from experiencing a magical adventure like sailing across the world by herself?  (Thanks Boing Boing) Over at Litkicks, Levi Asher picks six Fall, 2009 books […]

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Bites: Obama at the vineyard, Leni Zumas, Atlas Sound does Fleetwood Mac, and more

Tut tut bitches! Obama goes to Martha’s Vineyard! Leni Zumas tells The Rumpus about the last good book she read. Leni Zumas rules. Atlas Sound covering Fleetwood Mac maybe the biggest thing since Atlas Sound teamed up with Panda Bear. Three Guys One Book talk a little Updike. I like 3G1B (can I do that, or does it look like a code for the cousin of Swine Flu?), and I love Updike. I’ve never read Nicholas Mosely, but HTMLGIANT makes […]

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Weekend bites: Letters from John Hughes, continued Pynchon mania, Norman Mailor with his pants down, pop culture and the prez

The late John Hughes had a pen pal. Everybody is weighing in on Inherent Vice, and now, Three Guys One Book gives us a Youtube trailer to add to Pynchon Mania. Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeah’s) did some music for the upcoming Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack. The Rumpus shares some good advice from the late Budd Schulberg. At the New Museum, Norman Mailer is caught with his pants down, sort of, and it’s not pretty. Judy Garland was […]

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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 […]

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Is Barack Obama the Shakespeare of Politics?

The New York Review of Books has finally printed British writer Zadie Smith’s “Speaking in Tongues,” an essay based on her lecture given at the New York Public Library last December. In character with the 34-year-old novelist, Smith’s lecture is timely and timeless, youthfully sage, and fantastically put together both in terms of syntax and conceptual significance. In her lecture, Smith contrasts Barack Obama’s plight as a politician with William Shakespeare’s easy status as “everyman”: “Shakespeare’s art, the very medium […]

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Obama’s Inaugural Address: a Transcendental Fist Bump?

Next month, Obama’s inaugural address will be published by Penguin alongside the literary and historical texts that influenced it. Included in the collection will be three of Abraham Lincoln’s speeches as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance.” While primarily a publisher’s gimmick used to fatten up a short work with older texts that can be acquired for free, Penguin should have gotten a little more creative. The Lincoln connection is an easy one. Obama’s borrowed from him in previous […]

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