1. Scott Lindenbaum of Electric Literature gave us a reading list. Currently reading: The Halfway House by Guillermo Rosales (translated by Anna Kushner) Some really good books: Jernigan by David Gates The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald Distant Star by Robeto Bolano Molloy by Samuel Beckett The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino The Loser by Thomas Bernhard Jerusalem by Goncalo M. Tavares Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail […]
Are Electric Literature/Colson Whitehead the Greatest Tag Team Ever?
Today is Wrestlemania, tomorrow is the beginning of the Electric Literature/Colson Whitehead #Stuffmymusesays Twitter Contest. Which is more badass? or winning this…
Happening: Ten Walks/Two Talks Book Launch
Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch will launch Ten Walks/Two Talks (Ugly Ducking Presse) on Thursday, January 7th. The book combines ten walks around Manhattan, and two dialogues about walking — one of which takes place during a late-night “philosophical” walk through Central Park. Each walk lasted sixty minutes and gets documented in sixty sentences. Both dialogues lasted forty-five minutes. You may remember Cotner and Fitch from their “Conversations over Stolen Food” at Electric Literature a few months back. 7 p.m. […]
Weekend Bites: Sam Lipsyte to Tour With LCD Soundsystem?, Eno on Uncool, Harry Smith, Cheever’s Biography, Airplanes Saving Magazines, and More
Next time we do bites, the Rick Moody/Electric Literature Twitter Fiction project shall begin. Sam Lipsyte and LCD Soundsystem on the road together in 2010? Over at Drowned in Sound, James Murphy considers it. Reading the new Sam Lipsyte novel “the ask” now, which comes out around the time the LCD record does, so maybe we could have the most absurdly awkward co-headlining tour together… Brixton and bookstores?? New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year. Even though the […]
Bites: Natalie Portman Likes Jonathan Safran Foer’s Book, NY Times Likes Electric Literature, Ames Kvetching on Twitter, The Watson Twins, and more
Natalie Portman went vegan thanks to Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book, Eating Animals. She writes about it for Huff Po. Makes the confusing statement, “I don’t believe in rape, but if it’s what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it.” Lit. New York Times give mad props to Electric Literature. A Sherlock Holmes handbook. Maybe a good gift for Robert Downey Jr.? (Thanks Mental Floss) Rick Moody and a parkway in Connecticut. Jonathan Ames kvetches on […]
Bites: Fiction v. Non-Fiction, Poe’s Funeral, Proust’s Questions, Lev Grossman on being a critic, Wild Things, Hornby’s Education, Nick Cave & PJ Harvey, and more
Jim Shepard for Electric Literature on the subject of fiction based on non-fiction: “We need to bear in mind, as we’ve been told many times, that we’re working from, but not necessarily about, our lives.” Lit. Edgar Allen Poe gets a real funeral. (Thanks, The Rumpus) On Vanity Fair’s website, take Proust’s Questionnaire and find out which celebrities you most resemble. Lev Grossman guest-posts for and on the National Book Critics Circle blog. Film, a Quick Weekend Roundup What will […]
Coming up: The Soapbox Reading Series Presented by Electric Literature
We have been pretty much been a fan of just about everything Electric Literature has done so far. I mean how can’t you be? Did you bother to read this thing they wrote about Thomas Pynchon that references Bob Dylan and David Foster Wallace? Did you see their stuff on Youtube? Did you pick up their book? We did, and we like all of the stuff we mentioned, so we will be taking a field trip to Washington Square Park […]
Bites: Lord Byron knows what women want, (un)successful indie ventures, and Zoetrope in wine country
Hilarious found library books website Awful Library Books goes totally un-PC. Repeat after me: This is not funny, this is not funny, this is not funny. (…Yes, it’s hilarious.) Books bound in human skin? Literary cannibalism, or something. Critical Mass outlines the launch party for the summer issue of Zoetrope at the Francis Ford Coppola Wineries. “Lit mag launch, Sonoma Style.” Last week, Vol. 1 reviews the issue here, Brooklyn style. We’re still hearing buzz about Electric Literature, a new, […]