Cher and Cher Alike
Note to English Majors: Calm Down
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2010 Giller longlist announced
The longlist for Canada’s 2010 Scotiabank Giller Prize has been announced. Notable omissions: “Ilustrado by Montreal’s Miguel Syjuco, which won the Man Asian Literary Award before it was even published; Beatrice and Virgil, Yann Martel’s first novel since his breakthrough Life of Pi; and, most notably, Room by Emma Donoghue, which was recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.”
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Poems on Poems
“Of course, his word-pictures don’t define the art of poetry—nor are they meant to. In part they exemplify it; in part provide a warning that such an art eludes straightforward setting out in words.” On Horace’s and Archibald MacLeish’s Ars Poetica.
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Kai and Uncle Ruslan: When Memes Go Dark
“‘It’s important to realize how the funniness in these videos [such as those featuring Kai the axe-wielding hitchhiker and Uncle Ruslan] is really close to something that’s desperately unfunny,’ says Mark O’Connell, who wrote Epic Fail: Bad Art, Viral Fame, and the History of the Worst Thing Ever.”
Miranda July, Craigslist Reseller
Miranda July’s new project, It Chooses You, is a store based on her new book (published by McSweeney’s) of the same name. The store, at Partner’s and Spade in SoHo, is an exercise in buying belongings from New York-area Craigslist sellers and reselling the contents for the exact same price.
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Brave New Books
“In the new environment, science fiction writers needed new formulas – or even better, needed to have the courage to operate without pre-cooked recipes of any sort. In short, science fiction needed to grow up and take on the adult world, in all its messiness and uncertainty.” Ted Gioia pens a paean to sci-fi writers of the 1960s. Among his recommendations (including a reading list of 64 works): Camp Concentration by Thomas M. Disch, whose larger oeuvre is considered here.