Fresh on the heels of his gargantuan New York Times Magazine profile, as well as the announcement that he’s led Jon Huntsman Jr. in the South Carolina polls, political prankster Stephen Colbert has decided to run for “president of the United States of South Carolina.” This, of course, is not the first time he’s pulled this stunt, but it is the first time he’s done it with this much funding. All of this raises the question of whether this is political satire or “School House Rock on Steroids.” But don’t get too excited. Apparently folks from the Palmetto State will not actually be able to vote for him.
Colbert 2012
Hatchet Job Prize
Turns out Americans aren't the only ones who adore snark. The novelist and critic Adam Mars-Jones has won the first Hatchet Job prize from the British website Omnivore for his blistering takedown of Michael Cunningham's latest novel, By Nightfall. Mars-Jones beat out Geoff Dyer's slam of Booker Prize winner Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending. "It isn't terrible," Dyer wrote, "it's just so...average."
All That We Love
“Maybe I [felt] a shift in responsibility when I had kids. I wanted the work I was doing, whatever it was, to be something that could be meaningful to them one day. That’s where the germ of the memoir came from. I thought that perhaps writing about my parents and where I came from would one day be helpful for my kids.” For Guernica, Christopher Kondrich interviews Tracy K. Smith about writing a memoir, the presence of David Bowie in her Life on Mars, and her reverence for the cosmic. Also check out Sophia Nguyen’s Millions review of Smith’s memoir, Ordinary Light.
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The 7 Habits of Self-Help
“I have learned to consume them in secret, in my own home, reading them the way you would eat a bag of M&M’s that you keep stashed behind the kale chips.” Jake Tobin Garrett for Electric Literature about the allure of self-help books. See also:“Unleashing the Essence of Self-Help Books in Three Simple Steps.”
Liars and Cheats
What happens when a Kickstarter campaign turns out to be a swindle?
Polygamy the New Feminism?
Fans intrigued/disturbed by the real-life look at polygamy from the perspective of women in the HBO series "Big Love" might be interested in this bit of news from Siberia.
Tale of a Giraffe
Today in New Zealand: Granta published a Kiwi short story in partnership with Commonwealth Writers.
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