Historian Suzanne Fischer on nostalgic artifacts and the changing use for typewriters from work objects to elements of decor.
Whither the last typewriter?
Maybe he just doesn’t take režektion very well?
Philosopher Slavoj Žižek doesn't seem very happy these days. Yesterday he published a harsh response to the lukewarm reception NYRB and the Guardian gave his recently published opus, Less Than Nothing. And his declaration that "99% of people are boring idiots" in an recent interview does little to soften his image.
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“A Imperfect Dad”
"As much as I claimed that I read for my own edification, it was a lie. The books I was most drawn to were those that were loved by someone in my life. Reading them, I thought, would teach me all I needed to know about them—nice and safe, from a distance. Reading them with one hand, it was easy to have the other keep them at arm’s length." Romy Sugden writes for The Oyster Review about trying to connect with her estranged father by reading John le Carré's A Perfect Spy.
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Nevermind
Robert Fitterman, author of Nevermind, a book of poems created from Nirvana’s seminal album, interviews critic and scholar Paul Stephens about his own work and Nirvana’s art. Looking for more music related lit? Check out our Torch Ballads and Jukebox Music section.
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“In the distance, a low rumble. A train?”
Barrelhouse editor Dave Housley wrote a “Commercial Fiction” piece for Hobart’s website about the “trippy magical realism” in Coors Light advertisements. You know what that means, right? People all over the world! Join hands. Start a love train. (Love train.)
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Megaupload Latest
Megaupload's demise has the internet in an uproar, but the shutdown of the sharing site is unlikely to put a dent in online piracy. Still, sites such as FileSonic, FileServe, and and Uploaded.to have taken matters into their own hands by disabling sharing access in the United States, and MediaFire's CEO has issued a preemptive statement on the matter. None of this is particularly surprising, though, which is why it's so refreshing--for all fans of Schadenfreude--to learn that Kim Dotcom, Megaupload's "Goldfinger"-esque founder, plans on releasing an album in the near future.
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It’s not plagiarism… it’s angloglobalisation?
On the London Review of Books blog, Kaya Genç makes the case that the similarities between the successful Turkish author Elif Şafak's work and Zadie Smith's books is a fact of Turkey's shifting cultural values rather than plagiarism: "Istanbul, the city Shafak returned to after writing her book in London and the setting for many of her earlier novels, resembles London more and more." For a bit of context, here's Lydia Kiesling's rundown of the initial scandal.
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Raise a Glass to Kingsley Amis
New Yorkers! Come out tonight and celebrate Kingsley Amis alongside the Volume 1 Brooklyn crew, the New York Review of Books Classics publishers, and also such guests as Parul Sehgal, Rosie Schaap, and Maud Newton. There will be free gin! However if you can’t make it, you can treat yourself to the Kingsley Amis Desert Island Discs from the comfort of your own home. The discs, recorded around the time The Old Devils was published, reveal the author’s views on “novel mechanics,” the “Welsh temperament,” and his affinity for jazz.