Works by one of my favorite artists, Takeo Takei (1894-1982). These prints come from one of the jewels of my collection — a handmade artist book that a friend found for me on a recent trip to Japan. Read the rest of this entry »
Stephen Hawking: galactic tagger.
The long-list for the weirdest titled books of 2009 award (has been announced).
NYRB essay on the history of Facebook.
Prophetic pictures from 1905 Wisconsin. (via Mefi.)
An Oral History of January 1, 1989: Circle Jerks Vs. Skinheads Read the rest of this entry »
“Why is the Kindle my enemy, you ask? Because I mostly write books, and when the list price of my book is $27.95, I make 15% of list price if it sells more than 15,000 copies. But if my book sells for $9.99, or some such, which is, more or less, a Kindle price, then I make quite a bit less and get a lower royalty rate. Ergo, for someone who is trying to make a living at this stuff, suddenly I am giving my shit away, and getting less for it besides.”
Rumpus contributor Rick Moody received a Kindle for Christmas.
This week: Party with The Rumpus, learn about the future of newspapers according to the good people of McSweeney’s, celebrate the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s 20th birthday, and rock the Shabbat in IndieFest style with a White Russian and mini-bowling.
Monday 2/8: Brace yourself — it’s time for the February Monthly Rumpus! This time around, catch readings from Tony Dushane, Robin Ekiss, Ethan Watters, Kevin Sampsell, and Daniel Handler, a performance by DJ Real, music by The Yellow Dress, and a spectacular hoopdance by Richard Porter. The fun starts at 7pm for a mere $10. 21+ @ The Makeout Room (3225 22nd Street). Read the rest of this entry »
An old professor from college writes me and asks for my snail mail address. It isn’t such a strange request – we have developed a kind of friendship since I graduated. I babysit his daughter on occasion; we meet at the corner store for coffee when we can both find time, which is almost never.
A week later a package arrives at my mother’s house, where I am staying for a month to sort some things out. The package is addressed in my professor’s handwriting, and inside is Nick Flynn’s The Ticking Is the Bomb. The book is yellow, with a silver and blue graphic on the paperback cover, drooping in my hand as I hold it, standing in the middle of my mother’s hallway. Read the rest of this entry »
Eric Puchner’s first novel exposes the faultlines and frustrations beneath the shining American dream. Read the rest of this entry »
The February Monthly Rumpus will be at The Make-Out Room tonight!
Featuring authors Tony Dushane, Robin Ekiss, Ethan Watters, Kevin Sampsell, and Daniel Handler! Along with the hilarious DJ Real and music by The Yellow Dress. Plus a special hoopdance performance by Richard Porter. And don’t forget our monthly porn raffle.
$10, cheap! You can’t afford not to go.
Desperate to save their businesses, the private companies who sell loans to college students have been heavily lobbying the government to keep subsidizing their loan programs. A bill that will overhaul the private loan industry recently passed in Congress with clear support from President Obama, who stated in his recent State of the Union Address “no one should go broke because they chose to go to college.”
The new proposal would retract government subsidies to private lending companies and cap the amount students have to pay back every month to 10% of their salary if they make more than $16,245 a year, reports Bryan Gerhart in his article for the California News Service. Loans that hadn’t been paid back after 10 years would even be forgiven if that student worked for a nonprofit or government organization. Read the rest of this entry »
But they’re still unsure what came first, the depression or heavy web use. (via The Awl)
“Just about everyone I know complains about the same thing when they’re being honest—including, maybe especially, people whose business is reading and writing.”
Facing a stream of criticism for questioning Twitter and other new technologies, George Packer responds to his critics.
JOHNNY TREMAIN’S HAND
★★★★★ (1 out of 5)
Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing Johnny Tremain’s hand. Read the rest of this entry »
“Tabor, a soldier at the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Wash., told police he held the little girl’s head backward in a sink of water, Yelm Police Chief Todd Stancil told the the local newspaper, the Nisqually Valley News.”
U.S. Soldier waterboards his daughter, age 4, for not learning the alphabet.
”This isn’t about making money, you negative pricks: it’s about making movies.”
Kevin Smith addresses the pros and cons of directing a fan-financed movie and how if (if being the key word here) he did he would refuse to take a salary.
No, you’re confused, Doug. “Asbestos” was the name of that Greek drive-thru they converted into a free clinic. This is insulation that’s going keep my bad-ass fort warm come winter time. No girls allowed unless it’s your mom, bro.
More.
Over the past couple of weeks, Gelitin, a collective of four Austrian artists—Wolfgang Gantner, Ali Janka, Florian Reither and Tobias Urban—have occupied Chelsea’s Greene Naftali gallery in New York in a happening called “Blind Sculpture.”
Their productions are inspired by the work of Sigmund Freud, the sculpture and performance work of Franz West, and in response to the exhibition methods known generally as Relational Aesthetics, which is an art practice that questions the boundaries of art, is inspired by a desire to conflate life and art and is situation-based. Art that involves people, doing things. My friends Hanne and Jochem had taken me to see it. I asked if there was a common thread to their work. “Usually someone shows his penis,” Hanne said and laughed. It was late January–the first Saturday it had been open. Over the course of ten afternoons in total, Gelitin would use the space to complete their “sculpture.” As of last Saturday, February 6, the sculpture is complete and on view. Read the rest of this entry »
This week in New York, Harper’s presents “Love: A Rebuke” with Colson Whitehead, Heidi Julavits and Sam Lipsyte, Simon Critchley in bed with Cabinet’s Brian Dillon chatting about hypochondria, Vol. 1 Brooklyn and Gignatic present the Greatest 3-Minute Rock ‘n Roll Story Ever, Adam Haslett reads from his debut novel, The Magnetic Fields perform, Zachary German and Tao Lin celebrate the release of German’s new book, and BOMB Magazine hosts its Winter Issue Launch Party.
MONDAY 2/8: Susan Sontag. PROMISED LANDS (1974). Susan Sontag’s third directorial effort and her only documentary, PROMISED LANDS scrutinizes the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict and the growing divisions within Jewish thought over the question of Palestinian sovereignty. Shot in Israel during the final days and immediate aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, it is undoubtedly one of Sontag’s most incisive examinations of contemporary Jewish consciousness, and she considered it her most personal film.With and introduction by artist Paul Chan. Anthology Film Archives. 32 Second Ave. Read the rest of this entry »
In the Philippines, whenever someone sings a certain Frank Sinatra song, somebody gets it in the neck. The My Way Killings.
Clothing for the discerning clergyman.
Sometimes people are really into typefaces but also have too much free time; those people do things like this.
Hella sweet pictures of astronauts and such (warning: french text).
The BBC is going to talk to you about plankton for a little while.
Are you ready for spray-on liquid glass?
“First let me debunk a couple of myths, starting with the principle that “anything is better than nothing”. Trust me, it’s not. Relieving suffering should be guided solely by need and not what people have to donate.”
Claire Durham of the Red Cross on why you should donate money instead of your old yoga mat. (via Boingboing)
Some people say men aren’t funny. In her memoir I Don’t Care About Your Band, comedienne Julie Klausner says it a few times: (1) “I was tired of pretending I thought he was funny”; (2) “I knew I was funnier and smarter than [insert man's name here].”
Here are a few things to know about Julie Klausner that will help you get the most out of this interview: Read the rest of this entry »
Click here to read The Rumpus interview with Paul Madonna
Read more Small Potatoes at angrylittlepotatoes.com
…
“One in four Americans is employed to protect the rich.”
Here’s an underreported story: Dominicans are coming to the aid of Haitians, despite a less-than-idyllic history between the two countries.
VICE is taking a ton of heat for its treatment of Liberia in “The Vice Guide to Liberia.”
A very cool looking architectural installation that covers an abandoned Detroit home in ice.
Here is what Gitmo looks like.
In an unrelated side note, due to what will forever be referred to as the great hard-drive mounting fiasco of 2010 (really, who decided that hard drives needed to “mount” anything? Couldn’t they have called it something else?), my computer has decided to die on me. Unfortunately, this will be my last post today, but I’ll be back next week with a new computer and a lot less money in my savings account.
“I do believe that literature and storytelling has a safe future. The medium is still being negotiated, but I believe that we evolutionarily developed to speak and use language, and as an extension of that I think there is an inherent need for human beings to tell stories and also to hear stories or perceive stories. As long as there’s language, I think the future of literature is safe.”
— Alexander Hemon at Guernica Magazine talk about exile, the future of literature, and the revival of short stories.
“Stephen Elliott: I don’t generally hook up with people when I first meet them. And also, when you’re on the road, I don’t know, it’s kind of awkward. What I long for when I travel isn’t sex, it’s intimacy. I don’t know if you can have intimacy with someone you just met. Why are we talking about this?
SE: You’re interviewing yourself. You know that don’t you?
SE: Yes. I’m sorry.”
Our own Stephen Elliott’s got a pretty damn funny Self-Interview over at The Nervous Breakdown.
This ad by Mancrunch was turned down for a spot during the Superbowl today.
My relationship with the book blogs has hit a snag. Today, we got in a throw-down fight, and I came pretty close to breaking some china.
It’s just that the blogs whine and worry and complain a lot, and they always seem to want to cheat on me with famous writers, like Martin Amis or David Foster Wallace or Marquis de Sade, and then it rubs off on me, and I end up whining and worrying and complaining more than they do, and then I stop liking myself.
So today, the book blog roundup will be made up entirely things that I think are awesome. No Amazon, no “last days” worrying, no whining, no literary celebrity fetishizing. Just things that rock.
If you only click on one link, this roundup at Pank of short stories and poems and things is really phenomenal.
Newspaper blackout poetry is one of my new favorite things. (via Bookslut)
At Vice, a very cool photography/written collaboration between Brian Evenson and John Sellekaers. (via GIANT)
And finally, here’s a final passive-aggressive blow: “This is the title of a typical incindiery blog post.” (via @electriclit)
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