Apparently There is a “There” There

Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story is now a reality. He got to try Google Glass and wrote about the experience for The New Yorker. “When the velvet-rope hostess at the of-the-moment Wythe Hotel bar in Williamsburg stops to take a photo of me with her iPhone, I know exactly what the producer meant. This is the most I will ever be loved by strangers.”

Vanity Fair’s latest cover is proof that we live in an era in which men have the privilege of being just as objectified as women.   Nominally a celebration of the 2010 World Cup that kicks off in South Africa in June,  the magazine’s gay porn-ish cover features soccer superstars Didier Drogba of the Ivory Coast and Portugal’s Christiano Ronaldo in nothing but their flags, photographed by Annie Leibovitz.  Within (oh, my stars & stripes!) you can behold the U.S.’s Landon Donovan, as well as Brazil’s Kaká, Italy’s Gianluigi Buffon, England’s Carlton Cole, Germany’s Michael Ballack–all in their undies.  Cheers to you, Vanity Fair: Your enterprising shamelessness truly knows no bounds.

In an interview with Spiegel, Günter Grass talks about writing after the Nobel Prize, his involvement with Hitler Youth, the e-book movement, and his “declaration of love” to the Brothers Grimm. (via Bookslut)

McSweeney’s offers a nine-page sneak peek at its forthcoming newspaper issue.