“Wherever you are…realize that your essence is divine, son / and let it shine, son.” Peace to Guru Keith Elam, 1966 – 2010.
The Illest Brother
Snowbound
Recommended Reading: Daniel Arnold’s Nervous Breakdown self-interview, which follows an excerpt of his new story collection, Snowblind.
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Boiled Down
“Like reading, love works in roughly the same way every time, but the details of any given case are irreducibly particular, and it’s in the details that everything happens.” Lidija Haas on Elif Batuman’s debut novel, The Idiot. (You could also read our review by Virginia Marshall.)
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“The worlds of rock and lit appear to be merging”
What do indie rock musicians share in common with experimental writers? A great deal, and not just a distaste for both of those over-used adjectives.
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Baby It’s Warm Outside
“It turned out that the most successful Christmas records tended to have two common qualities: catchy, upbeat melodies and imagined unlikely scenarios for anthropomorphized yuletide characters.” Move over, Frosty! It’s beginning to look a lot like … an unseasonably warm December. Here is a brief history of Christmas songs and of their often-surprising rise from corny kitsch to global sensation.
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