Michael Lewis has been tapped by Warner Brothers to adapt his first book Liar’s Poker for the big screen. This will be the third movie based on one of Lewis’ books.
Michael Lewis Goes to the Movies (Again)
Inventing Language
From J.R.R. Tolkien‘s High Elvish to Anthony Burgess‘s Nadsat: the BBC takes a survey of fictional languages and the invented words that made it into our everyday speech, like Dickens‘s “butterfingers” and Shakespeare‘s “scuffle.”
On That F*ckin’ “A”
Members of the Word Reference forum contemplate the etymology and meaning of the “A” in the expression, “Fuckin’ A.” Elsewhere Geoffrey Nunberg, linguist and author of Assholism: The First Sixty Years, shares his take on the ubiquitous “a-word,” which he believes originated during World War II.
Library of Lagging
“‘There is almost no work, within the vast range of literature and science,’ [Thomas Jefferson] wrote in an 1874 report, ‘which may not at some time prove useful to the legislature of a great nation.’ Thus the Library Of Congress’s mandate expanded: it would acquire anything and everything of importance … By the late 19th century, the LOC had become a kind of national brain trust, a heritage of information that aspired to timelessness.” This piece on the Library of Congress and its internet progress (or lack thereof) is fascinating and thorough. Go and spend some time with the digital archive, there are only around seven million gigabytes of information for you to thumb through.
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LDS Superstar: Parker & Stone’s The Book of Mormon
Some Mormons are excited about the recent news of Trey Parker and Matt Stone‘s forthcoming musical, The Book of Mormon: “How can they call us a cult once we’re headlining 52nd Street? The Jews got ‘Fiddler.’ The Catholics got ‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘Doubt.’ It’s our time to shine.” Read more at the Salt Lake Tribune.
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Bold and Messy
Over at Full Stop, Josephine Livingstone writes about Eileen Myles’s hip image and the renewed success of Chelsea Girls. Also check out Stephanie LaCava’s Millions essay on how social media helped to push Myles’s book into the mainstream.
Pop-Hop Books & Curio
Coming in 2012: Pop-Hop Books & Curio. Located in the Highland Park neighborhood on the east side of Los Angeles, Pop-Hop will be “a creative retail environment merging a bookstore and project space.” More information, as well as some opportunities to support the project, are available at the shop’s Kickstarter page, and also on its Facebook page.
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Tomorrow!
This past week GOOD laid off most of their editorial staff, including former Executive Editor and creator of the #realtalk From Your Editor tumblog Ann Friedman. Posting some extra #realtalk on her blog yesterday, Friedman announced that the band of former GOOD editors are looking for work and also launching their own magazine: Tomorrow.
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