Frank Portman, of one of my favorite pop-punk bands, Mr. T Experience, has a new book out called Andromeda Klein, and he gives Largehearted Boy a great playlist for Book Notes. N+1: Not so into zombies/alien films, but likes District 9. Indichik put up an MP3 of Beach Fossils last week. I forgot to mention it, but it’s well worth mentioning considering this guy is putting out some of the best stuff I’ve heard all year. New York Times Book […]
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 […]
Bites: Mapping Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, clamping down on the free wi-fi, Akron/Family
It seems appropriate to start this off with HTMLGIANT picking “Favorite First Sentences“ Papercuts points out that Thomas Pynchon is in fact, from the East Coast, and there needs to be an interactive map of Pynchon’s New York in response to the interactive map of LA that Wired provided us with last month. While some people are spending their summer reading Infinite Jest, Conversational Reading is working on “Westward the Course of the Empires Takes it’s Way”, and says it’s […]
Bites: Library flavored ice cream, John Wray, queer zines, Pynchon mania, and more
We’d just like to reiterate that if we have any weight to throw behind getting Ben and Jerry’s to make a library themed ice cream, we would totally throw that weight around. John Wray says that most readings are “intensly boring“. We want to nod, and agree, but, oh, wait, didn’t he do our reading? Dammit! Decider Chicago talks about the Queer Zine Archive Project. Jacket Copy gives us a preview of their Inherent Vice review. Why bother reading it […]
Bites: Harry Potter parties, they just can’t let old Jackie rest, Thomas Pynchon at the stroke of twelve, and more
So what if a certain boy wizard and his mates like to toss back a pint or two? I’m pretty sure I can name five other classic children stories that involve drinking, drug taking, and other unsuitable behavior. Don’t people have better things to kvetch about? The battle over Jack Kerouac’s estate is still going on. Maurice Sendak is totally into the film version of Where the Wild Things Are. Really. Jessica Hopper interviews Marissa Paternoster from the band Screaming […]
Monday Bites: literary duels, giant guinea pigs, poets being selfish, pynchon reviews, daria, david cronenberg picks delillo’s worst book
Good morning! Did you know that Dostoevsky once challenged Turgenev to a duel? I ask, with swords?? Do famous writers still duel? Norman Mailer probably did. And Mario Vargas Llosa and Gabriel Garcia Marquez sort of managed, although it was more of a one-punch deal. On literary feuds. Giant guinea pigs trump boy wizards, apparently. The Daily Beast interviews Jeffrey Eugenides, who was fired from his desk job at the Academy of American Poets for writing parts of The Virgin […]
Bites: The homosexual undertones of Harry Potter, Atlas Sound and Panda Bear destroy indie, Salman Rushdie and Thomas Pynchon eating dinner together
Gawker on “The Homosexual Undertones of Harry Potter“. Worth it just for the picture, and the line “Alan Rickman looks like a New Wave lesbian in a cape.” There should be a law against Atlas Sound and Panda Bear (of Animal Collective) colaborating on this song, it’s really not fair to everybody else (except maybe Woods). The new Atlas Sound album, Logos, in October on Kranky. On the flipside of that, not so sure how I feel about Death Cab […]