According to a new biography of Richard Pryor, the legendary comedian kicked off his career as a teen in Peoria, Illinois, when he starred in a play based on Rumpelstiltskin and “broke the other kids up.” At The Nervous Breakdown, nine choice passages from the book.
“He hasn’t come down since”
“Years passed.”
Recommended Reading: “So I Went Away” by Crapalachia author Scott McClanahan.
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Stuffing This Curiosity Full of Taxidermy
Anjuli Raza Kolb reviews Rachel Poliquin’s The Breathless Zoo, which “tracks the history of whole animal and animal specimen preservation, particularly taxidermy, which refers to the stretching and mounting of the skins of vertebrates, from the seventeenth-century European explorers to the present, with a heavy focus on Victorian practitioners and collectors.” No word on whether or not Poliquin remarks on this curious Danish Facebook group of terrible taxidermy. (Bonus: Caitlin Horrocks’s new story on FiveChapters, “The Lion of Gripsholm – Part Four: IV. The Taxidermist.”)
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From Paris to New York (Broad) City
"Of course the evening ends with Abbi and Ilana in the bath, together, passing their 'weed' from one mouth to another. But I am chilled, less comforted somehow. How are these people anything less than confused, every hour of every day? How on earth, how in all of Eros, do women know which vote to cast, which life to elect as their own?" The Diary of Anaïs Nin While Watching Broad City courtesy of Laura Eppinger at The Rumpus.
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“This recent column was just bonkers”
Catching you up to speed with two recent literary controversies: 1) Poets & Writers' MFA rankings kerfuffle gets a climactic and eloquent summary from The Missouri Review's Michael Nye. 2) In response to her Salon article, "How the National Book Awards made themselves irrelevant," Victor LaValle has some fightin' words for Laura Miller.
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Book Fixin’
Do you have books in need of binding repair? Do it yourself!
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