Afternoon Bites: Amy Klein on Kurt Vile, Bowie’s Diagrams, Colm Tóibín, David Abrams on World Book Night, and More

“Now some small part of the grand tradition of the lone American troubadour belongs only to him. He is a natural and unaffected heir to its tropes of the individual. And by now, on his fifth album, he sounds like an elder statesman of a country of his own making — one located somewhere between past and present, inside and outside, complete isolation and complete connection.” Amy Klein on Kurt Vile’s latest. Kory Grow on the last days of Bleecker […]

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Afternoon Bites: Authors on Film, Dennis Lim at Vienalle, Charles Portis, and More

"Escape Velocity" cover

Glen David Gold  on Charles Portis and Flannery O’Connor. That time 43 authors showed up at a Park Slope coffee shop at 6 a.m.… Amber Sparks on Michael Kimball’s Big Ray. This weekend’s Moby-Dick marathon reading: recapped. There’s a new issue of Shabby Doll House. Alan Moore and TV On the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe teamed up. Dennis Lim covered the Vienalle film festival for Artforum. McSweeney’s and the Flaming Lips are teaming up. Warren Ellis on Colm Toibin’s The Testament of Mary. John Calvert on Swans […]

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Morning Bites: Literary Paint Chips, Bon Iver Erotica, Three 6 Cormac McCarthy, and More

Zadie Smith and Colm Tóibín hung out at Symphony Space and a few Vol. 1 people were there. The Paris Review rounds up some beautiful literary paint chips. “I’m lying in bed right now, and Bon Iver is chopping up heirloom tomatoes for our frittata.” – Bon Iver Erotica is the best Tumblr we saw this week. Filmmaker Magazine caught Jonathan Lethem doing a little talking. Blake Butler compares the histories of Three 6 Mafia and Cormac McCarthy at Vice. Gertrude Stein, a […]

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