Dear Internet, can you please get to work on a single-serving Tumblr dedicated to weird literary videos? And, when created, can it just eternally re-post this video of a shirtless Glenn Danzig posing by his bookcase (and apparently a roaring fire)? (h/t Adam Boretz)
“Welcome to my book collection”
For Her
Leave it to Roxane Gay to come up with a novel format for an essay on the feminist novel. In the new issue of Dissent, she presents eleven theses on the topic, including references to Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, and Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Sample quote: “Not every novel that concerns itself with the lives of women is a feminist novel. Fifty Shades of Grey is not a feminist novel.” You could also read our own Edan Lepucki on the problem with feminist anthems.
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Education in America
In The New York Review of Books, Anthony Grafton has a long piece on the issues facing the American university system. I’ve previously linked to Malcolm Harris‘ excellent n+1 piece on the “higher education bubble,” but this infographic vividly illustrates that same inflation.
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The Master Gets a Trailer
The trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson’s forthcoming film The Master was released this week. The film will be about a mercurial religion called “The Cause,” and the whole thing appears to be based on L. Ron Hubbard and the Church of Scientology.
Reasons to Read the Classics
In 1968 Italo Calvino published 14 reasons why we should read the classics, and his list still feels relevant. Pair with the Millions’s essay on, well, reading the classics.
Lay Down Your Arms
Growing up, I was always taught that chickens lay eggs and people lie down. Since then, I’ve always been irritated by that verb’s misuse. But maybe it’s time to settle down and relax. Maybe, as Kathryn D. Blanchard argues, it’s time to stop “clinging to values that no longer serve their purposes.”
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Pale Fire
You can’t write about Robert Lowell without writing about mental illness — the poet went through many stretches of mania and psychosis in his life. In the Washington Post, Michael Dirda reads a “medico-biography” of Lowell, which takes a full measure of his lifelong illness and its consequences.
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Mr. Moran – Is it your suggestion that the Internet find a way to put the Glenn Danzig shirtless video on a continuing loop? Your emotional criticism of the “White Suit’s”repeated reference to scantily clad females in Back to Blood evidently is, as I suggested, personal. You’d rather the repeated references be of scantily clad men. And how much was Danzig paid? Whatever the amount, it was far too much. And if he’s going to discuss his bookshelf, he should put a shirt on and discuss the woodwork of the shelf, not the books on it. Shame on you Mr. Moran. Your criticism of Wolfe reeks of PC politics and in part motivated by personal sex preferences.