Readers of Millions Originals ebook Epic Fail are deeply familiar with Tommy Wiseau’s heroically bad 2003 film, The Room. So, too, are people masochistic enough to sit through the actual movie. Together, they might be wondering how such a production came to be – and how it came to fail so horribly. Well, finally a new book co-authored by Greg Sestaro and Tom Bissell seeks to answer that question. You can check out an excerpt over here.
How The Room Was Made
They’re Not Rocks
"I have this belief that you have to save at least half of your crucial experiences. The ones that are crystalline. The ones that you always can recall. And you recall that every detail—what actors call a sense impression. You remember how things smelled, what they felt like, how you felt at the moment. You remember every single last part of this episode, or moment in your life." This interview with Norman Mailer from The Paris Review never actually made it to print, which makes it all the more fascinating.
●
●
The New Yorker Says No to The New Yorker
The greatest trick David Cameron ever pulled was getting The New Yorker to reject itself.
●
●
New from Claudia Rankine
Experience Claudia Rankine’s sound and fury in a new poem in The New Yorker. Pair with a piece on why Americans love poetry, but not poetry books.
That Moment When
"I can still remember with complete clarity the way I felt when whatever it was came fluttering down into my hands that day 30 years ago on the grass behind the outfield fence at Jingu Stadium; and I recall just as clearly the warmth of the wounded pigeon I picked up in those same hands that spring afternoon a year later, near Sendagaya Elementary School. I always call up those sensations whenever I think about what it means to write a novel." Haruki Murakami on "The Moment [He] Became a Novelist," excerpted on Lit Hub from the new double edition of his first novels, Wind/Pinball.
●
●
Speculation
"The only kind of drama is human drama. What matters is how deep you dig." At the Ploughshares blog, a case for science fiction over "dysfunctional family dramas."
●
●
Writing as Profession
Writers can’t create original work without financial stability and a minimum amount of rest, writes Maggie Doherty in Dissent. Pair with Kate Angus’s Millions essay on making a living as a poet.