Tao, when you are 73, I hope you get arrested for shoplifting from American Apparel: Seniors. (And I mean that with the greatest affection.)

Pindeldyboz, a site which I read regularly and aspired to publish on early in my discovery of the vibrant online lit scene, is shutting down. Thanks for everything, Whitney and gang.

A few more prizes (stuff from Juked, Artifice Magazine, Future Tense Books, Melville House, and Muumuu House) have been added to the prize packages for our 20 Under 40 Pick ‘Em Contest. The deadline to enter is 11:59pm on June 1st.

New York Times Magazine on hipster darling M.I.A., aka Maya Arulpragasm: Maybe kind of a complete poseur? UPDATE: M.I.A. pissed off by story, tries to trick fans into prank calling the reporter, Lynn Hirschberg.

via thethe

I once heard a scholar use the term “project” as he introduced another poet at a reading. He went on and on: “Her project echoes Dickinson’s project [blah blah blah].” The comparison seemed fine, but I wasn’t really sure the poet in question really had a “project” per se. Nowadays, poetry critics and scholars often refer to an entire body of work by one poet as a “project,” but I don’t think poems work that way. I think poems come from the earth and work through the mind from the ground up. I think poems are living things that grow from the earth into the brain

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Check out The Guardian’s weak-ass list of “Top 10 Troubled Males in Fiction.” No Hogg, no Nicholas Urfe, no Patrick Bateman, no Frank Cauldhame, no Max de Winter?  Who else is missing?

I enjoy really unique book packaging. Tank Books, in the UK, has released a line of classic works packaged in cigarette packs. As an ex-smoker, I’m all over this.

Don’t forget: Tomorrow, Thursday May 27 at 9 PM Eastern (6 on the west coast) the amazing Sam Lipsyte will be doing a live streaming reading here on HTMLGIANT, from his new book The Ask, followed by a q/a. Please help us spread the word!

Resolved: Sex and the City 2: Leathery Monsters is the ne plus ultra in Al Qaeda recruitment propaganda.

I can only think of about four bands I consider truly, aesthetically, punk. On the other hand, I can think of at least several dozen writers that are punk as fuck.