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From Stephen Elliott
This week in New York Summer is Short, John Brandon makes a Citrus pit stop, Gary Shteyngart is Super Sad, MGMT is inspired by sex balls, Scott Pilgrim takes over as this week’s Saturday Movie Pick and The Comfort of Strangers is a noteworthy art exhibit.
In New York this week Rick Moody kicks off his book tour, BOMB Magazine hosts its Summer Bash at Glasslands, Black Keys perform at Summer Stage, Anderbo.com hosts Anderbo Indoors, Sandra Bernhard in Shel Silverstein’s Hamlet, Joseph O’Neill, Nicholas Christopher and Rachel Shukert read, and Paul Dano and Kevin Kline in The Extra Man.
There’s been a lot of new people here lately, so if you’re new to the Rumpus (or if you’re not), Sunday’s the day where you can catch up with what Rumpus Books has been up to this week.
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When he’s not documenting his irreversible addiction to food porn or commiserating with the literary illuminati, Gary Shteyngart writes books. OK, he writes some of the funniest books I have read, penned by a Soviet or otherwise.
This week in New York The Rumpus throws an A Night Together with Sam Lipsyte, Michael Showalter, Lorelei Lee, Jeff Lewis, Jump-Off winners and more, Jamaica Kincaid and Rick Moody help collect Books for NY Schools, Richard Nash and Jim Hanas debate fiction and technology, Gary Shteyngart and Amy Sohn host a Shabbat dinner, Robert Coover reads, Etgar Keret talks to Ira Glass and Frederick Wiseman’s film Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind screens.
This week in New York Unsound, the avant-garde culture festival that began in Eastern Europe, debuts in the city, historian Garry Wills discusses the atomic bomb, a night with filmmaker Ross McElwee at IFC, Jamaica Kincaid and Gary Shteyngart on Becoming Americans, Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen speaks, Hot Chip performs, Projection: A Reading Series presents a multimedia show with David Levithan and Meghan O-Rourke, and Opium Magazine celebrates its 9-year anniversary.
Friday October 16, the New Yorker opened its annual weekend festival of readings, conversations, art tours and musical performances. This is my account of the events I attended, which included among others a talk with Malcolm Gladwell, readings by George Saunders, Gary Shteyngart and Jonathan Franzen, a musical performance by Neko Case and a conversation with James Franco.
The New Yorker Festival is fast approaching, and tickets are on sale now. As always, the festival, which runs from October 16-18, promises to bring together the most interesting minds in literature and the arts including Jonathan Franzen, A.M. Homes, Gary Shteyngart, Tilda Swinton, Malcolm Gladwell and many others.