Other
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Step Aside, Dashiell Hammett
If you like your detectives hardboiled and your femmes fatale, you’ll dig Flavorwire’s list of ten essential neo-noir authors. From Dennis Lehane (author of Shutter Island and Mystic River) to Lindsay Hunter (the heir apparent to Mary Gaitskill’s throne), these writers…
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“An Elegy for Mathematics,” by Anne Valente
An Elegy for Mathematics, Anne Valente’s first full-length release, is a wonderful little book. Checking in at fewer than fifty pages, it’s a quick but deeply layered and poignant collection of material, most of which was previously published online. (She…
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
Today in ruin porn, the world of abandoned borscht belt resorts. Banner ads are basically the least effective thing ever. Here is everything you need to know about the coming cicada swarm. We are all using incredibly old words. KILLER…
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Claire Messud on making friends with Characters
Annasue McCleave from Publishers Weekly suggested during an interview with Claire Messud, “I wouldn’t want to be friends” with Nora, the fiery protagonist in Messud’s new novel, The Woman Upstairs. “[Nora’s] outlook is almost unbearably grim,” continues McCleave. Messud shot back: For heaven’s sake, what kind…
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The Biological Challenges of E-Readers
Traditionalists agree: There’s just something about good old-fashioned paper-and-glue books that e-readers can’t recreate. According to this Scientific American article, that “something” may be the way our brain processes written words as physical objects in “a kind of physical landscape.” Although…
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Ted Wilson Reviews the World #181
YAWNING ★★★★★ (2 out of 5) Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing yawning.
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Boyz II Mentos and Other Illustrated Puns
PBR Kelly. Weekend at Bert & Ernie’s. They may not be as literary, but San Francisco artist Justin Hager’s illustrated puns remind us of Timothy Leo Taranto’s. Check out more of Hager’s work on his Tumblr (or at shows around SF).
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Michelle Tea’s Book Party Looks Awesome
Food, drink, fortune-telling, live music…is there anything about the release party for Michelle Tea’s new novel that doesn’t sound amazing? The book is Mermaid in Chelsea Creek, new from McSweeney’s McMullens; the refreshments are pierogi, chocolate, and cocktails; and the entertainment includes Annah…
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Notable San Francisco 5/6-5/11
Don’t forget your mamas this Sunday, friends. Monday 5/6: ODC teams with visual artists, musicians, choreographers, scientists, and interdisciplinary thinkers for The Deep End, a performance examining “psychiatric and/or neurological disorders through artistic and scientific/medical lenses.” Free, 7pm. Tuesday 5/7: FlipSide…
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Nick Cave Monday #34: “The Ship Song”
“The Ship Song” can induce emotions of love, lust and affection. It’s a sexy and soft ballad. If you listen to the song and no one is around to kiss or fondle, there is no shame in showing your affection…
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Weekend Rumpus Roundup
If your Cinco de Mayo was too excelente for you to spend much time online, here’s a recap of what happened on the Rumpus this weekend. An aquatic wonderland of a comic from Yumi Sakugawa. “What if we are stuck?…
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Notable New York: 5/6-5/12
Monday 05/06: Ben Greenman heads to the Franklin Park Reading Series to celebrate the release of his new novel The Slippage along with Sam Lipsyte, Toure, Claire Vaye Watkins, and Amelia Gray. The first fifty people at the reading get…