February 2012
1 post
January 2012
18 posts
(Of course I will totally change my tune if B&N orders ten zillion copies of my next book!)
Barnes & Noble, Taking On Amazon in the Fight of... →
much as i am rooting for the ultimate viability of the publishing industry (or some form of it at least), sorry but I truly can’t bring myself to root that hard for Barnes and Noble. I suspect there are many others who feel the same way. I guess it’s like how if you had an ex-boyfriend who cheated on you in some harsh and egregious way, you wouldn’texactly want him to die but...
4 tags
4 tags
2 tags
Evan Dando - He’s On the Beach
On the way...
3 tags
5 tags
2 tags
“I am an unashamed, unapologetic believer that the purpose of literature is to...”
– Alexander Nazaryan in “Against Walter Dean Myers & The Dumbing Down of Literature” (via irisblasi)
No! All art is real art.
All real art isn’t good art, but who cares? (More on Nazaryan’s boldly-titled essay later.)
4 tags
7 tags
What It’s Like To Be James Franco’s Professor →
I like James Franco well enough as an actor, obviously think he’s super-hot, and have absolutely no opinion when it comes to his academic career, but R. John Williams’s breathlessly sloppy RJ of his celebrity student is my nomination for most embarrassing thing published on the internet in 2011.
Oh, wait, there was also that thing about Aperol cocktails. And that thing about how Zoe...
December 2011
11 posts
7 tags
Watch
I’ve been pretty into Rdio lately, which I don’t know why I like it so much better than the more-hyped Spotify, but I do. Maybe it’s because I always felt like Spotify was somehow going to broadcast to everyone when I spent an entire day listening to Jann Arden’s Insensitive on repeat, but Rdio probably has the potential to do that also so who knows.
Anyway, this is a...
1 tag
7 tags
but the main, abridged point
is that consolidation has a terrible effect on the entire publishing chain and ultimately affects not just where you’re able to buy books (which is what most of the excellent responses I’ve read focus on) but also what books are even produced in the first place.
This was already a big problem with the big box chains and becomes an even bigger problem if Amazon becomes sole publisher,...
4 tags
Brilliant, Incisive, Informed Essay
I have a lot to say regarding this Farhad Manjoo thing about indie bookstores and Amazon— things I haven’t seen anyone else say yet!— but I’m too lazy to actually write anything so you will just have to imagine all my smart thoughts on the subject.
5 tags
“… after our second night together, he told me he had never thought this...”
– From Emily Carter’s excellent Glory Goes and Gets Some, this month’s Emily Books selection.
6 tags
6 tags
4 tags
7 tags
November 2011
21 posts
6 tags
4 tags
Rethinking the Familiar Book Tour →
Okay, I’m definitely all for trying to figure out a way to fix the problem of how boring and excruciating “Readings” are, but I’m not totally sure that replacing them with extended Q+A’s— as this WSJ seems to be partially suggesting— is the answer!
Every single person I know dreads “the Q+A portion” which at best just ends up being a bunch of...
2 tags
2 tags
Transmissions: The Literature of AIDS
fagcity:
Saturday, December 03, 2011 11:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.
The School of Writing in conjunction with the publishing collective Mischief and Mayhem marks the 30th anniversary of the start of the AIDS epidemic with a one-day symposium featuring two panels. The event also features a screening of Dan Fishback’s thirtynothing and David Wojnarowicz’s A Fire in the Belly; excerpts from the ACT UP...
1 tag
4 tags
How I Learned to Drive →
At Emily’s urging i have made a playlist. The one thing I wish Rdio would add is a way to append comments to individual songs so I could clarify that I once drove around Takoma Park for three hours listening to Deana Carter while wearing those novelty Bar Mitzvah sunglasses that make little Star of David shaped halos around streetlights and traffic signals.
4 tags
Militarization of Campus Police →
thematerialworld:
This is a great essay on non-violent civil disobedience, police brutality, and the skyrocketing cost of public education in the United States by Bob Ostertag, professor of technocultural studies and music at UC Davis:
**********************************************************
Yesterday, police at UC Davis attacked seated students with a chemical gas.
I teach at UC Davis and...
3 tags
Faking It →
I wrote a thing for Nova Ren Suma’s inspiration blog series. Mine involves disco balls, Susan Sontag, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Long Island Ice Teas. It’s possible I was a little insane when I wrote it but whatevs
3 tags
4 tags
6 tags
2 tags
4 tags
“Aside from non-customary visits to places like Pioneer, or The Creek, the bars I...”
– Please read this essay by my old friend Sean Boyland, who passed away this summer. I met him when we were writing partners on an exceedingly bad kids’ cartoon, and he was easily one of the most brilliant people I have ever known. The essay is sad and hilarious, and of special interest to...
2 tags
michelledean:
Being in Writing School with (mostly) men is a strange thing. I like the men I am studying with, in large part, and two of them are Scandinavian to boot, always a plus. But I often sit around and feel frustrated that I fundamentally lack their confidence. This will maybe come as a surprise to those of you who know me only in text, and in the real world too, because “confidence”...