This is a little late (apologies), but those of you in the Chicagoland area can, today and Thursday, see Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) at the Siskel. I wrote a bit about that movie here; it’s one of the best ever made.

what is the last thing you felt surprised by that you remember, i need to know

“. . .in August in Mississippi there’s a few days somewhere about the middle of the month when suddenly there’s a foretaste of fall, it’s cool, there’s a lambence, a soft, a luminous quality to the light, as though it came not from just today but from back in the old classic times. It might have fauns and satyrs and the gods and — from Greece, from Olympus in it somewhere. It lasts just for a day or two, then it’s gone. . .the title reminded me of that time, of a luminosity older than our Christian civilization.”

— William Faulkner

Tell me a good joke.

Do you want literature? Are you interested in liturgical vestments? Ever experience hemotoxicity? Want to stroke maple musical instruments? Did you know that ‘zero’ is in? |||||| NNATAN 0 / THE FIDDLEBACK 2.4 ||||||

Check out The L.A. Telephone Book, the amazing anthology of new work by Los Angeles & other Southern California writers, compiled by Brian Kim Stefans.

You can download the volume for free here.

Contributors include Harold Abramowitz, Amanda Ackerman, Will Alexander, Rae Armantrout, Ben Doller, Johanna Drucker, Kate Durbin, Sesshu Foster, Jen Hofer, Mathew Timmons, David L. Ulin & many many more. More info here.

Chill little New Yorker blog post about Justin Taylor’s new story in the New Yorker. Story is for paid subscribers only, but according to the adorable little pop-up ad, they are offering a free “WEEKENDER” bag (wine bottle pocket? fold-out cheese plate? 401k 101 booklet?) for new recruits, so get the urge.

The Last Vispo Anthology: Visual Poetry 1998-2008 is coming soon from Fantagraphics Books. Preorder & read an excerpt here.

from da generous Shane Jones: I have a lot of author copies for Daniel Fights a Hurricane and I want to give a few away. I was thinking a contest at HTMLGIANT where people can win a copy by creating a new kind of weather in the comments section and say what its effects are. I’ll pick three “winners” and send the copies out this weekend. 

Brooklyn based, small press Augury Books has extended its Editor’s Prize deadline until August 15th. DetailsHEEREREREREREREREREREeeeee