“How many male novelists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” At The Toast, Mallory Ortberg writes some great jokes to use at your next cocktail party.
Joke’s On You
Fiction or Defamation?
The novel that had Scarlett Johansson filing charges of “fraudulent and illegal exploitation of (her) name” is due out next month in its English-language iteration. The First Thing You See by Grégoire Delacourt is ostensibly about a garage mechanic who ends up falling for a Johansson lookalike. For more on the legality of literature, here’s an essay for The Millions on J.D. Salinger and U.S. copyright.
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Revolution Girl Style Now
Listen up, rebel girls! The October issue of The Believer features selections from New York University’s riot grrl collection, curated by archivist Lisa Darms.
Talking with Makkai
BOMB Magazine sits down with Rebecca Makkai, author of Music for Wartime and The Hundred-Year House. “People love to underrate plot, because it makes them sound like they’re beyond it, like plot is best left to Danielle Steele.“ For more Makkai, check out our interview with her.
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“Poetry is like fudge.”
Recommended Viewing: Poet and professor Campbell McGrath reads some of his work for Miami’s recent TEDxCoconutGrove event.
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The Queen Died of Grief
Must female characters always stand in the shadow of the institution of marriage? Ivan Kreilkamp writes on female bachelors, from Renata Adler’s Speedboat to Elizabeth Hardwick’s Sleepless Nights. Pair with this Millions essay on Adler’s piecemeal novel.
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Weaponized Friendship
Recommended reading: This review of The Social Sex: A History of Female Friendship by Marilyn Yalom and Theresa Donovan Brown. Here are a couple of complementary friendship-related essays from The Millions.
Oh my gosh, too funny…… Re: “How many male novelists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” At The Toast, Mallory Ortberg writes some great jokes to use at your next cocktail party.”
OK, here’s mine:
From his corner at the repurposed-wood bar, he sneers at the sound of bad prose. The trace of a smile graces his lips. Give up, old man, give up, let the young buck plow the field!! He peruses the barmaid. Eureka! The perfect phrase at last…. “Her legs were supple but marred by blue-ropey veins…” He would show it to her later that night when he picked up the chapbook she just typed for him.
The End
Maureen Murphy
(Scourge of the Hipster Doufus)
Washington DC