Joel Rice has a new column up at McSweeney’s, in which he looks at “the literature of skateboarding.” All in all, this kind of reflective writing should pair nicely with Nick Courage’s fantastic Paris Review piece from last month. (Bonus: Rice’s column linked above also features a nice little bit of David Foster Wallace memorabilia.)
The Literature of Skateboarding
Violence and Darkness for Children
In a New York Times op-ed piece on violence in children’s literature, Maria Tatar claims that “the savagery we offer children today is more unforgiving than it once was.” Is that really the case? Adam Gidwitz‘s A Tale Dark And Grimm (reviewed by the Times last November), which underscores the violence inherent in Grimm’s tales, can be read as a counterpoint.
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Look Away
“Recently, a friend told me she didn’t like pictures of herself because she never looked the way she thought she did in her head. I think this pretty much describes the universal horror that is looking at your own photos, and that’s why I love the selfie so much. It gives you all the controls to the story you are telling.” In defense of the selfie.
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Rocking Out With the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan loves music just as much as her protagonists in A Visit from the Goon Squad. Westword, Denver’s alt-weekly, asked Egan what her five favorite songs are. The playlist includes everyone from Iggy Pop to Cat Power. We think Bennie Salazar would approve.
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Details on the Film Adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s Room
On Twitter, Room author Emma Donoghue breaks the news that Brie Larson will star in the film adaptation of her 2010 novel, and that the script will be written by Donoghue herself. (Related: our own Edan Lepucki reviewed the novel soon after it first published.)
Sterling Cooper Draper Time
“According to the biography, Hadden designed the fact-checking system with the thought that putting a male writer and a female researcher together in a quasi-adversarial situation would create a sexual dynamic that could lend energy to the process.” Calvin Trillin’s memories of the Time offices in the early 1960s are at times more Mad Men than Mad Men.