Yearly Archives:: 2010
My Year In Books
As The Millions keeps rolling out their amazing Year In Reading series, I’d thought I’d offer my own attempt at doing justice to the books in my life, and not just the ones I read this year but the ones that keep piling up on my desk, on my floor, in my bed with the furor of a contagion, not to mention the ones I peddle during daylight hours at the bookstore I work at.
The Exonerated’s Struggle
Great article over on the ABA Journal about the struggle of exonerated prisoners post-release. Freed prisoners talk about the many difficulties of returning to the real world including not being able to operate cell phones or computers and even how tough it is just to get a driver’s license.
...moreJesus Loves Sex Workers
It’s the question we’ve all asked ourselves at some point: what WOULD Jesus do about prostitution? Over on Salon, Tracy Clark-Flory profiles former prostitute and Hookers For Jesus rep Annie Lobert who claims to have the answer.
[SPOILER ALERT: "God loooves sex!"]
...moreThe Visual World Of W.G. Sebald
“Sebald is brilliantly visual.
He makes you realize with some discomfort that you often fail to look attentively enough at what you see.
Another novelist referred to the “phenomenal configuration” of the author’s mind and what astonishes and delights in Sebald’s sentences, superbly rendered by his translators, is his ability to convey not just the detail of so many things hitting the senses in a rain of fleeting simultaneous impressions, but the precise emotional shading and personal import of each of these moments.”
Photographer Rick Poynor offers a dazzling commentary on the “embedded images” in the late W.G.
...moreIntegrated Shelves
Sadly, like so many independently owned businesses, many LGBT bookstores are closing up shop. Andrew Belonsky argues that it may not be a cut and dry story of “big business squeezing out the little guy” though, but instead a sign of “A New Era for Equality.”
(via TheBookBench)
...moreDanya Glabau’s Tech Links
In 2010, people really wanted to get to the Facebook website, using all kinds of silly search terms.
Here’s a cool infographic showing how technology use in the world has changed in the past decade.
Profile Maker now makes it easy to create cool effects with recently posted photos on the new Facebook profile.
...moreLook! Look! Feathers
Mike Young’s debut collection sifts through the lives of characters on the fringe, grounding moments of the surreal in a world that is frighteningly real.
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
At last, Billy the Kid may be pardoned.
Rock art is alive! (woo!)
Everyone loves a good old space book.
I honestly have no idea what is going on here, but I like these Norwegian city proposals quite a bit, you know, aesthetically.
...moreReading Habits of the Service Industries, Part One
Nick Delany turned up at a reading I gave at the Brooklyn Museum in November of 2010. He remarked, during the question and answer portion of the event, that he had mostly been reading just one book for the last ten years.
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...morePFC Bradley Manning Update
PFC Bradley Manning is the man accused of providing classified information to the Wikileaks project. He is currently being held in the brig of the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, VA, where he has been for the last five months.
He’s being held in conditions any reasonable person would describe as solitary confinement—isolated in his cell for 23 hours a day, denied reading materials or personal contact, and prevented by guards from exercising except during the one hour per day he’s allowed out of his cell.
...moreWrecked City
Michael Chabon talks about “what he was able to salvage from the wreck of Fountain City,” his novel that never saw the light of day (until now that is, as “an annotated, four-chapter fragment” has been published in McSweeney’s 36).
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“Any favorite writing exercises?”
“Eavesdrop and write it down from memory–gives you a stronger sense of how people talk and what their concerns are. I love to eavesdrop! Gossip. The more you talk about why people do things, the more ideas you have about how the world works.”
Jane Smiley talks with Meg Pokrass about writing exercises, mentoring, and more.
...moreThe Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #36: Tom DeMarchi in Conversation with Angie Lucas
Angie is my 19-month-old son Charlie’s nanny. She’s been living with us since October 12, 2010. Angie is 30 years old, and is currently reading John Williams’s novel Stoner.
...moreRun-On
“Even if the World’s Longest Sentence record is fraught with asterisks [...] the allure of the form is, well, longstanding.”
Ed Park, whose own novel Personal Days ends with a sentence over 16,000 words long, discusses the “Very Long Sentence” in literature.
...moreYou Think That’s Bad? The Future of The Rumpus Book Club
We have some very good news for The Rumpus Book Club. In February we will be featuring the new story collection by Jim Shepard, You Think That’s Bad. We will only be able to accept a certain number of new subscribers for the Jim Shepard book, which will ship in early February.
...moreShape of a Key, of a Dog, of a Letter
Magazine Review #3: Tin House #46, Winter Reading
I’ve been craving winter. Real winter. Snow and ice and shoveling and bundling up to the point of being unable to bend over. We don’t get that here in San Francisco.
Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
You look like you could use some Polish art.
Behold the South Korean English teaching robot.
Here are some vintage photo postcards for you.
Very old teeth are very important.
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