Lots of excellence on the list of 2011 Whiting Award winners: Teddy Wayne, Daniel Orozco, Ryan Call, and more. If I were you, I’d celebrate the weekend by reading Orozco’s “Orientation.”
Whiting Winners
“Stare at us stoned like eyes determined”
Rage Against the Machine frontman Zach De La Rocha has penned a poem dedicated to the Occupy Wall Street movement.
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Still Fighting It
The “Albums of Our Lives” series from The Rumpus has produced a couple gems. In this newest edition to the series, Andrea Laurion takes on the Ben Folds classic Rockin’ the Suburbs.
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“Exeunt all, except the Clown.”
Recommended Reading: Mallory Ortberg wrote an entire short story based on stage directions at The Toast.
A New Kind of Book Review
A new kind of book review: 5 artists interpret and critique literature through works of visual art.
Making the Puzzle More Hip
Meet the 23-year-old who’s been tasked with “injecting some swag” into the “traditionally conservative New York Times [crossword] puzzle.”
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Four David Mitchell books on the way
David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks now has an official release date, as well as ample pre-publication details to whet your appetite. News of the book, which will be available in September, also came with the announcement of a new three-book deal with Random House.
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Emily Gould’s Favorite Memoirs
Emily Gould, author of the new memoir And the Heart Says Whatever, lists the best memoirs ever at the Daily Beast: “A few themes run throughout: druggy, decadent bohemia, forbidden or strange sex, art, and power, and, um, cooking.”
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Huxley’s Closes His Doors of Perception
Doors of Perception author Aldous Huxley requested a dose of LSD as he succumbed to laryngeal cancer in 1963. Three weeks later, Huxley’s widow, Laura Archera, wrote a letter describing the experience (“the most beautiful death”) to her brother-in-law. Today the prescription of psychedelic drugs to terminally ill patients is less uncommon than you might expect.
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