Weekend Bites: Cocteau Cult, The Salinger Plan, Intellectual War, Shteyngart’s Free Food, Playboy Cartoons, and More

The cult of Cocteau Want to try being like J.D. Salinger?  Don’t pay taxes, tweet, or keep the same e-mail address.  If that doesn’t work, just freak out about tiny things. A Ticket to the Circus, Norris Church Mailer’s memoirs about seeing Norman Mailer in the nude, is reviewed.  I think I’ve already made up my mind on this one. Good book people on Twitter. On Gary Shteyngart and food. Gahn Wilson’s Playboy cartoons get the book treatment. Intellectual feud: […]

Continue Reading

Weekend Bites: New Jersey Rock, Dr. Seuss on the Couch, Twain’s Political Legacy, Portnoy Turns Forty, and More

In the New York Times: Ted Leo, Titus Andronicus, and New Jersey rock Speaking of T.A., Pitchfork basically echo my statement made a few weeks back, about the bands newest album, The Monitor, being one of the best albums of the year. Levi Asher plays analyst on Dr. Seuss. The enduring political wisdom of Mark Twain. Portnoy’s Complaint is 40. “Can you turn a J.D. Salinger into a Mark Cuban?”  Huh? Indie rock and classical composers: the list. L Magazine […]

Continue Reading

Is John Hughes the J.D. Salinger of Chicago?

Over at Vanity Fair, we learn that even after his time directing some of the most iconic films of the last 30 years,  John Hughes kept writing and writing. Reading these stories, and having seen all of his films a few times each, I can’t think of another writer or artist that understood the teenage mind like Hughes other than possibly J.D. Salinger.

Continue Reading

We Are All Holden Caulfield…and Stuff.

J.D. Salinger has been dead a little over a week, but his most popular book, and character, continues to be a popular topic on the net. The Daily Beast discusses “The Heirs to Holden“. and Deckfight asks if Tao Lin’s Shoplifting From American Apparel is the new Catcher in the Rye? and Joanna Smith Rakoff talks about her experiences handling Salinger’s mail.

Continue Reading

Bites: Why Franz Quit, Johansson Does Arthur Miller, Salinger Reviews, iPad Prophets, Magnetic Fields FAIL, and More

Franz Nicolay, whose “Complicated Gardening Techniques” is coming out on our very own Julius Singer Press, talks about why he left The Hold Steady. With Scarlett Johansson tackling one of his best plays, Wall Street Journal takes a look at “How Arthur Miller Found His View“. A brief history of J.D. Salinger reviews. Thomas Edison: iPad prophet? At The Faster Times, Michael Kimball Interviews Padgett Powell. According to this review, The Magnetic Fields FAIL. The Rumpus gives us Czechoslovakian book […]

Continue Reading