Literary Doppelgangers
WOODY ALLEN & JOYCE CAROL OATES
There’s a Woody Allen joke where he and a woman mutually undress in a hotel room, until he, without his glasses on, realizes he’s standing before a mirror. That woman, if there ever were one, would be Joyce Carol Oates, also near-sighted and pensive, self-conscious with dour eyebrows. Of the life-size bronze statue of him in Oviedo, Spain (a town he featured in Vicky Cristina Barcelona), let us hope he doesn’t undress before it. He also said “Don’t knock masturbation, it’s sex with someone I love,” which Joyce read as a rejection that fateful night in that hotel room, leaving her with nothing but time, and that chest-sinking task of writing too many novels to count.
Blake Butler—
What’s the maddest you ever got at a book, either for how it resolved, or what it said, or what its author did or said?
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Bookslut 100
Bookslut #100 exists and is wonderful. Founders Michael Schaub and Jessa Crispin exchange letters and fond memories. Jim Behrle draws Bookslut’s origin story. Ben Greenman and Pauls Toutonghi kick off a new series together, where they exchange letters about authors who have won the Nobel prize. Eryn Loeb talks to Rachel Shukert. Michele Filgate talks to Lee Rourke. Elizabeth Hildreth talks to Dorothea Lasky. Rachel Rabbit White talks to Stephen Elliott AND Steve Almond AND Tao Lin about sex “after Portnoy” (a long goddamn time after Portnoy, btw, but hey, live and let live). Our own Blake Butler talks to our own Christopher Higgs. Plus the usual wealth of reviews and columns. One hundred congrats and cheers and kudos to Jessa & Michael–long may you both slut.
Uncategorized / Comments Off on Bookslut 100
September 16th, 2010 / 11:37 am
September 16th, 2010 / 11:37 am
Some Neat
David NeSmith has epublished a new haiku thing, from his El Greed comics. He’s taking comics and haiku off the page. He’s putting wardrobes on the page. I don’t know, you figure it out.
It’s been up for a bit, but Maureen Thorson’s review of Tan Lin’s Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004. The Joy of Cooking (Airport Novel Musical Poem Painting Film Photo Hallucination Landscape) is so good that I read it and immediately bought the book. Now the book has arrived, and I’m trying to like it as much as I like the review. It’s ambitious in its extratextuality. Its beautiful in its conception. But its wtf in its words. I don’t know, you figure it out.
Gee whiz, here’s an exhaustingive Bookslut interview with Dorothea Lasky.
Karen Lillis on working at St. Marks Bookshop.
Don’t forget: Telephone Journal giveaway ends tomorrow. Leave a comment, win a book.
Troyan, Cassandra & Cody. Big Bill and the Lonely Nation (2010)
cover art by Sara Drake
The chapbook itself includes:
-eenui! -anti-nationalism! -apocalypse theory! -aristocrats (not cats)! -slime! -culture! -thomas jefferson! -french dames! -ostriches! -insomnia! -papsmearz! -drunkenness! -sea turtles! -humping! -circle-jerks! -cheeseburgers! -desperation! -outsourcing! -federally-funded infrastructure! -10 year-old girls! -consumerism! -capitalism! -minimalism! -maximalism! -marx(imal)ism!
Official release date, September 17th, 2010
Only $4
Pre-order your copy now!
The release of the chapbook is also the beginning of a reading series called EAR EATER that will happen at Cassandra’s apartment and other spaces in Chicago throughout the year.
Stunning new issue: LIES/ISLE
Issue 4 of the now-outdoing-its-own-beauty LIES/ISLE is live and full of local names and weird & warping prose. The contributors: Kimberly Keith, Thomas Kendall, Christof Pryor, Nikolina Nedeljkov, Shome Dasgupta, Merzmench, S.J. Christmass, Arkava Das, Emily Walden, Brenna Murphy, Mitch Patrick, Richard Ferber, Michael Leong. Curated, designed & published by J. Tian and Mike Kitchell, who does astounding work.
Paris Review Blog 404
This is why I like the internet somewhat: Joyce typos caused by quick updates even from the glossies.
Or maybe it’s no typo? Maybe “momentairly” is a more beautiful way to remind you that on the internet part of the fun is the making of whoompers, and sometimes whoompers are the charm.
Anyway, in however long it takes a momentairly to pass (perhaps it is over by the time you are reading this, realtime, shooing this icon to the PR web fodder bin), the Paris Review blog will return with a two week series of guest posts featuring Lydai Davis considering the act of translation, which we could surely use some help with anytime.
Trash Humpers on DVD & VHS
Following up on my post about how much I liked Korine’s latest, Trash Humpers is now about to be released on September 21st on DVD, VHS (in limited edition of 300, handmade cases by Korine), and on 35mm (in an edition of 5). Pick up yours here.
Here’s a sample of one of the original VHS cases:
Mike Young—
I like this poem “The Rumored Existence of Other People” by Timothy Donnelly. It showed up to me via Swindle. The poem is about audaciously thinking in very reasonable and terrifying ways.
Random Live Broadcast of Recent Books I Like 2
The live reading is over but you can play back my live reading of recent and upcoming new books I am excited about here:
Featuring excerpts from:
The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich
Daddy’s by Lindsay Hunter
Thin Kimono by Michael Earl Craig
Money Poems by James Gendron
Coma by Pierre Guyotat
&
Sprawl by Danielle Dutton