November 2012
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When editing gets in the way of love
Ah, editors. They sure do know what’s best. McSweeney’s features Jimmy Chen’s take on what Gordon Lish might have done to Raymond Carver’s OkCupid profile. If you want the lowdown on the real struggle between Carver and Lish, take a…
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This Is Why the UK Always Seems So Much Smarter Than the US
The Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year is “omnishambles,” while the Oxford American Dictionary’s word of the year is…”GIF.” We can’t even agree on how to pronounce GIF! The British runners-up underscore our cultural differences as well; “mummy porn,”…
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Tracking Quakes
I’d lived in California for over six years and still hadn’t experienced a quintessential California quake, still hadn’t come close to what Schopenhauer might call the “dynamic sublime,” the encounter with something powerful enough to destroy you.
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Glenn Beck, Novelist?
Mother Jones reports that Glenn Beck, to the dread/delight of snarky reviewers across the nation, will add another novel to his oeuvre, this one a dystopian sci-fi thriller called Agenda 21. The title may sound like a fictional name for…
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Belly Ripley and the Weirdest Parole Terms Ever
We’ve all been there. You go to Harvard, then to law school in Colorado. You own property in central Texas. You get caught trafficking drugs, and the court makes you study creative writing in El Paso as part of your…
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David Foster Wallace as Street Art
“Well,” he said. “If Che Guevara means ‘good looking, punky rebellion,’ then I guess David Foster Wallace means ‘good looking, rebellious bookishness.’” Tom Dibblee at Trop tells of his encounter with a Che Guevara styled stencil of David Foster Wallace.…
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“Baltics” by Tomas Tranströmer
Tomas Tranströmer’s Baltics, a long poem, first appeared in 1974, but this time around Samuel Charters has added a new afterword to his original translation, and his wife Ann Charters has included photographs from 1973 of Tranströmer and his wife at…
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Google is a poet. Does it know it?
Started on November 4th 2012, Google Poetics is a tumblr dedicated to unveiling the works coauthored by the world in Google’s search box. For example, when you begin to type “i am ve” and Google suggests places these letters have led…
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HORN! REVIEWS: The Dream of Doctor Bantam
Kevin Thomas reviews The Dream of Doctor Bantam by Jeanne Thornton, Rumpus Comics style.
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
The phrase “most distant galaxy ever” is a pretty good one. On the biodiversity of belly buttons. I hope you guys have been following this Denver UFO news (because it’s great). Important news item: people have been throwing stone-tipped spears…
