It turns out Martin Amis wasn’t the only literary gamer. Check out this 1980 Intellivision advertisement in which George Plimpton uses his iconic voice to slam Atari’s lineup of sports games — a full two years before Amis’ book released.
Plimpton Really Would Try Anything
“This ghoulish treasure trove”
At one time considered to be the work of demons or incubi, sleep paralysis – the “transition state between wakefulness and rest characterized by complete muscle atonia” – has since become accepted as a well-documented and not very uncommon phenomenon. Still, “the experience can be terrifying,” writes Karen Emslie in her recent piece about making the best of the condition.
●
●
A Truly Author-itative Map
Geoff Sawers has designed maps detailing the rich literary landscapes of the United States, England, and Wales.
●
●
Tom Bissell Turns Pop
How writer Tom Bissell has pulled up some literary roots (think The Father of All Things) to begin staking out territory in pop culture (Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter).
●
●
4 comments:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
O’Brien’s Bridge
If the Dublin City Council doesn’t name their newest bridge after Flann O’Brien, writes Frank McNally, then perhaps the author’s memorial should be built in Paris, Zurich, Trieste, or “any of the other great European cities to which he didn’t emigrate.”
●
●
“What does any human being want?”
In the Times, Dwight Garner reviews the new edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations, a compendium of quotes from notable black writers dating from ancient times to the present. Among other figures, Thurgood Marshall, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston and Cory Booker all have quotes in the book.
●
●
To Cover or Not To Cover
It seems like we’re always directing you to Shakespeare-related literary curiosities, but that’s just because there are so many of them! Head over to Electric Literature and watch as some of the Bard’s more famous plays get a beautiful new redesign.
●
●
Stories Are Clumsy Beasts
Over at ZYZZYVA, Christian Kiefer talks to playwright Octavio Solis and novelist Scott Hutchins about the craft of writing and the difference between writing plays and writing novels. “It takes a huge amount of hard labor, man, to harness the forces that we are using to make our stories. They may emerge whole cloth out of our need to know how we operate as humans, but they’re often clumsy unfinished beasts.” Kiefer’s new novel, The Animals, is one of the most anticipated books of 2015.
●
●
And then there’s Plimpton’s video falconry, which you can play (and learn about) here:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/571422
Ah, of course. And don’t forget the George Plimpton Hotplate. It’s perfect for soup!
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lgw5whN1Uo1qgllp5o1_500.png
Hilarious, but also bittersweet. This is the era when you had artists and intellectuals on the Tonight Show, right there with Sonny and Cher or Charo. Can’t really think of anyone today with Plimpton’s calibre who has that kind of household name status.
It seems the only late night cable shows in the US to regularly bring on writers and intellectuals are The Colbert Report and The Daily Show. I would love for something like the UK’s QI with Stephen Fry to catch on in the States, but that’s a dream.
I’d probably laugh out of my chair if I ever saw Franzen endorse an XBox, too.