Thanks to the success of the recent Muppets movie, the BBC is developing a “teatime chat show to be fronted by a new puppet.”
Will It Have a British Accent?
Proof that Obama is a Socialist
At long last…Google provides proof that Obama is a socialist! “Barrack” Obama, that is.
Why On Earth
“Why on earth would you start a literary magazine?” In an essay for The New Yorker Stephen Burt offers a wide variety of answers, from promoting a new genre to promoting one’s friends. His article pairs well with our own Nick Ripatrazone‘s lit mag question and answer: “What is the wider cultural influence of literary magazines? I am not sure there needs to be one.”
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Dificil
Growing up, Judy Bolton-Fasman watched her mother study Don Quixote, propping the book up on their kitchen counter while studying for her Master’s in Spanish literature. Her mother was a native speaker, but Cervantes was still a tough writer to figure out, especially if you were reading his work while trying to cook dinner in the background. The author looks back on her mother’s education in a Saturday Essay for The Rumpus.
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Blue Nights: Released Next Week
Jacket Copy visits Joan Didion at her apartment in Manhattan to discuss Blue Nights, which moves back and forth between the death of Didion’s 39-year-old daughter, Quintana, six years ago and the author’s reflections on aging. The book is a much anticipated follow-up to 2005’s The Year of Magical Thinking, in which Didion wrote about the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne.
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Van Doren’s Shakespeare Giveaway
Trevor Berrett, the man behind The Mookse and the Gripes, and now The Worlds and Works of Shakespeare, is conducting a giveaway for the NYRB Classics edition of Mark Van Doren’s Shakespeare. Conditions to enter are enumerated on his blog, which you should certainly bookmark if you’re a fan of the Bard.
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On Formative Viewings
At The Guardian’s website, Joe Queenan examines a little-known film, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, that “beguiled” Martin Scorcese when he was just twelve years old.
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