“I won’t pretend to specialize or present myself as an expert in anything,” says Luc Sante, introducing his blog, Pinakothek. “Subjectivity is my middle name, a trick memory is my pack mule, and self-contradiction is my trusty old jackknife.” Sante proceeds to dazzle with a stream of images of odd, out-of-the-way, intensely interesting artifacts. Each artifact is bolstered by commentaries, discussions of meaning, zinging interpretative analysis, theoretical stories of origin (if we were theologians we might call such tales artifact ‘creation myths’) such as why Ayn Rand once had to hire detectives to flush out a band of anonymous poets and how bank safes are probably all empty of money but full of A-Rod rookie cards and somebody’s collection of Beanie Babies. (see also The Believer interview with Luc Sante)
Random Brilliant Ephemera
Jesse Nathan
Jesse Nathan is an editor at McSweeney’s and the managing editor of the Best American Nonrequired Reading. His poetry and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in jubilat, the American Poetry Review, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Nation. He was born in Berkeley, grew up in Kansas, and lives now in San Francisco.