“Soccer inspires passions that make fans do strange things, from the horrifying to the amusing.” Just in time for today’s game, our own Bill Morris writes about the World Cup, soccer hooliganism, and Bill Buford‘s Among the Thugs. Celebrate or mourn as you will, just please don’t start throwing beer bottles…
On Hooliganism
“It is true that if there exists a ‘writer’s writer,’ [George] Saunders is the guy”
Joel Lovell profiles George Saunders for The New York Times, and he gives a killer endorsement for Saunders’s latest book, Tenth of December. The author’s collection from thirteen years ago, Pastoralia, was picked on our site as being among the “Best of the Millennium.”
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Lydia Davis, Ctd.
Last year, I pointed readers to Numero Cinq, a new Canadian lit mag with a notably memorable tagline. In the latest issue, which is split into seventeen parts, Benjamin Woodard talks with Lydia Davis about her Flaubert translation, her new story collection and the art of writing while traveling. (h/t The Rumpus)
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DFW a Year Later
David Foster Wallace died a little more than a year ago. It’s a good time to revisit Garth’s excellent piece written shortly after Wallace’s death. More recently, No Pun Intended published a long reflection on Wallace.
Northrop Frye… “a prodigy whose promise was entirely fulfilled.”
The latest issue of the University of Toronto Magazine has an informative, if slightly hagiographical, tribute to the literary critic Northrop Frye. This year marks a century since his birth.
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Righteous Anger
You’ve probably heard the sad news that Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman passed away on May 2nd. In memory of Hanneman’s work with the band, Greg Pollock wrote a paean to God Hates Us All, “the most important album in [his] life.”