November 22nd, 2009 / 9:50 am
Random
What Else is New?
Matt Taibbi has the best review so far of Going Rogue: “Sarah Palin–WWE Star.”
Nerve.com had one of their rare fits of being amusing- “Sex Advice From D&D Players.” (via Boing Boing)
Dennis Cooper’s got a spotlight on Garden, Ashes by Danilo Kis.
Ben H. Winters is at Slate, talking about how he wrote Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.
Penguin has named the ten “essential” classic books (a kind of best of the best of their Penguin Classics line), and made dopey little trailers for each of them.
David Haglund on Javier Marias.
Oh, and our own Chelsea Martin is interviewed at The Rumpus.
#Penguin
Oh my, why have I always to laugh looking at this cool-book-party-smart-smal-talks with wine and champagne. Truly, reading ranks among consume nowadays. Panem et circenses so to say.
Anyway, it’s a funny tendence of making lists (not in Greenaway way). In Germany the literary critisism Meister (or shark, it depends) Marcel Reich-Ranicki made also kinda “Kanon” for THE best lecture. He collected even multiple canons for essays, for poetry, for novels etc: http://www.derkanon.de/
Nice package, with nice handhold to transport
yourhis favourite literature to you next vacation location.reply
November 22nd, 2009 / 11:53 amMerzmensch aka kosmopol—
Addendum:
Body count in Hamlet is funny.
Q: “Why is this book so significant”.
A: “Well, there are people dying like flies: at first… etc.”
The flirting guy is pretty broken person – really sad thing,
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November 22nd, 2009 / 12:37 pmmimi—
m aka k -
lists – yay!
Greenaway – yay!
The Falls – yay!
der kanon – cool!
mit Gru(umlaut)sz(eszett)en!
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November 22nd, 2009 / 12:51 pmMerzmensch aka kosmopol—
Gru(umlaut)(eszett)e zuru(umlaut)ck! :-)
Yeah, and fully agree with you – “The Falls” – perhaps the best masterpiece ever!
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November 22nd, 2009 / 1:38 pmmarco—
I’ve read all the Penguins and 15/20 of Ranicki’s Roman-Kanon. It’s kind of sad.
Neither list is entirely convincing, but having proven myself a connoisseur of both German and Anglo-American culture, at least I can rightfully affirm that Tocotronic are better than Pavement.
Auch wenn u(umlaut)ber sex kann man nur auf Englisch singen.
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November 22nd, 2009 / 2:10 pmMerzmensch aka kosmopol—
Exactly. Tocotronic rules.
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November 22nd, 2009 / 11:38 pmapsiegel—
I love Tocotronic too. And I hate Reich-Ranicki and his taste. He’s like the Harold Bloom of Germany.
“Garden, Ashes” = one of best written (well-translated?) books ever — esp. good for Bruno Schulz fans.
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November 22nd, 2009 / 11:32 amdavidpeak—
the schulz reference just sold me.
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Dear people,
Sorry about this irrelevant request. I’d like to read more interesting blogs. Suggestions? (Self promotion is totally fine.)
Thx,
J.
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November 22nd, 2009 / 1:45 pmMerzmensch aka kosmopol—
I’d shamelessly suggest you my blog, but it’s in German. I often refer to HTMLGiant there though.
http://merzmensch.blog.de/
It’s mostly about dadaism, surreality of everyday and some weird poems, people will never understand (even if they read German).
And here people can find some my poems in English (among of German, Russian and Japanese), sometimes with crappy videos and senseless audios (coming soon):
http://merzerature.blogspot.com/
End of shameless self-promoting
regards,
Merzmensch
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great taibbi piece, particularly the rawls line. i also seethe over annoying people on the amtrak quiet car.
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November 23rd, 2009 / 1:07 amAmber—
Taibbi is the best political writer out there right now, hands down. Loved his take on the book’s content–interesting considering that most people (read: pundits) felt the pettiness of the book would hurt, not help her cause. I think he’s right.
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November 23rd, 2009 / 8:32 amdavid erlewine—
hey amber, yeah matt is a good writer. i remember his fake bush apology interview. matt’s a funny guy.
and yes his take on palin’s content appears spot on.
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Best thread ever.
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[...] a top 10 list: the classics of their classics, and they made a trailer to go along with it. (And HTMLGIANT’s brief description of it as “dopey” was, truly, an [...]