Bites: Dangerous babysitters, jailhouse rock, literary lovin’, Hemingway the Musical

An intellectual’s look at the American tradition of babysitting and why young babysitters are often perceived as dangerous figures. “The babysitter has conveniently served as a lightning rod for adults’ uncertainties about what the limits of girls’ autonomy and empowerment should be.” Whoa. There is babydaddy drama for Jude Law. Fittingly, he once sexed up the babysitter. Charles Manson and Phil Spector are now in the same prison. (via The Rumpus) And blatant literary lovin’ at The Rumpus. (This kind […]

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On Being an Insufferable Snob

Sonia Chung for The Millions recently elaborated on her “insufferable snobbery” when it comes to such literary topics as genre fiction, of which she herself finds them insufferable. She laments the cultural taboo of literary snobbery, citing last week’s profile of Nora Roberts in the New Yorker and a New York Times “Summer Thriller” series featuring Dean Koontz. Why do The New Yorker and The New York Times want me to rethink my dividing lines? Are my soul or my […]

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Bites: Dave Eggers preorder, Tao Lin tackles Herzog, New England lit. Bowerbirds, reading rappers, James Franco, classic albums

That ol’ rascal Dave Eggers has got (as broken down by a user comment on this site) a book coming out that’s a novelization of a movie that is based off a book. Or something along those lines. Either way, you can preorder the book starting now. On his blog, Tao Lin reviews Werner Herzog’s Land of Silence and Darkness. Moby-Dick is #1, The Bell Jar #4, Walden #12 (me: “wtf, #12? That’s it?”), and The Crucible is #43 in […]

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