When Terry Gilliam adapted Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Johnny Depp portrayed protagonist Raoul Duke. It became one of his most iconic roles. Now, thirteen years later, Depp will play protagonist Paul Kemp in Bruce Robinson’s adaptation of The Rum Diary. You can check out the trailer here.
Johnny Depp and Hunter S. Thompson
HomeWORK More Like HomeFUN
“Heidi Maier, the new superintendent of the 42,000-student Marion County public school district in Florida, said in an interview that she made the decision based on solid research about what works best in improving academic achievement in students.” In place of traditional homework, 20,000 elementary school students will spend 20 minutes reading a book of their choice each night, reports The Washington Post. Pair with T.K. Dalton on books, kids, and gender.
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Fifty Shades of Late Capitalism
“Fifty Shades of Grey follows this long history of class ascendancy via feminine wiles, but does so cleverly disguised as an edgy modern bodice-ripper,” writes Heather Havrilesky in the latest issue of The Baffler. Throughout the piece, Havrilesky explores the way luxury brand fetishism and conspicuous consumption fueled E.L. James’s “female-friendly” pornography phenomenon
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I’m scared already
Kirk Hammett, of y’know, Metallica has a book coming out this fall. It’s about his love of all things horror.
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Social Media Anxiety
Nancy Jo Sales, author of The Bling Ring, talks about her latest book, American Girls, at NPR. “In the 2 1/2 years she spent researching her book, Sales interviewed more than 200 teenage girls around the country about their social media and Internet usage. She says girls face enormous pressures to post ‘hot’ or sexualized photos of themselves online, and she adds that this pressure can make the Internet an unwelcoming environment.” You could also read Sarah Labrie’s essay on social (media) anxiety.
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Where’s Atticus When You Need Him?
Mark Seal explores the ongoing legal battle between Harper Lee and Samuel L. Pinkus, the latter of whom is said to have “’engaged in a scheme to dupe Harper Lee, then 80-years-old with declining hearing and eye sight, into assigning her valuable TKAM [To Kill a Mockingbird] copyright to [Pinkus’s company] for no consideration,’ and then created shell companies and bank accounts to which the book’s royalties were funneled.”
An Engine, An Engine
“It is a superstitious business—childish, really—the marking, or even the noticing, of anniversaries like these. Such fastening pretends that one day can be like another, pretends that every day is not, ultimately, only its own day, the only version of itself that will ever come. But ‘Daddy’ is itself a poem built on a bedrock of anniversaries.” At The Paris Review Daily, Belinda McKeon marks the birthday of an oft-revered poem.
Alyssa Cole on Leaning Into Anxiety
Alyssa Cole discusses her new book, When No One Is Watching, and the difference between writing romances and thrillers.
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