I'm the author of the novels Solip, Say, Cut, Map, The Country, and The City. I've also written the nonfiction books EarthBound and Eat the Flowers. I'm currently publishing my novel A Task via Kickstarter in order to have an hourlong conversation with each of its first thousand readers. For a decade I published books through Sator Press, and for a decade I acted in film and television; now I help students at St. John's College. More info: kenbaumann.com.
Looking, now?
Okay. So Justin Taylor’s debut book with HaperPerennial–Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever–was recently reviewed in the NYT. It will not be that hard, with that bump, to make this book a NYT Best Seller, which would obviously be a monumental event for Justin and these stories. I implore you: if you haven’t already, but this book from Amazon.com or your local bookstore THIS WEEK. Even if you have a copy already. I bought two more. This could be huge for Justin, this community, and good literature.
“Writers are frequently seen as being unworldly figures, but, as it turns out, the White House and the CIA would have been better prepared for 9/11 if they had read American novelists and dramatists rather than field reports. After the attacks, the intelligence community reportedly consulted Hollywood screenwriters about likely future threats, having spotted that movies such as Die Hard anticipated the methods and level of terrorist threat to the US, but they might just as fruitfully have called in DeLillo, Charles McCarry and Kushner.”
“He’d say, ‘If it is familiar, it has not eaten you yet.’ ” -on cognitive fluency and disfluency.
GW: My only interest in photographing is photography. That’s really the answer. -an interview with photographer Garry Winogrand.
Yes yes yes! Bookforum editor and The Awl contributor Chris Lehmann has signed a book deal with Or Books–he’s expanding Rich People Things, a series originally for The Awl. Details here. Congratulations, Chris!
Weak human + machine + better process was superior to a strong computer alone and, more remarkably, superior to a strong human + machine + inferior process. -Garry Kasparov on chess and computers.
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The first sentence of a new Marvin K. Mooney piece. Which reminded me of the Marvin K. Mooney hub, which has been redesigned–kid poem, dragon, another video, and a countdown at the bottom.(?)
