The upcoming Supreme Court decision on gay marriage is drawing a lot of attention. But what about the other ruling — the one aimed at grizzled old men? At The Onion, a report on Justice Alito’s recent decision, which tersely states that marriage is a pact between a man and the sea.
“The heart belongs to the tide and the deep alone”
The Tragedy Interviews
One of Tumblr’s most consistently enjoyable accounts belongs to Ben Dewey, comic book artist and proprietor of The Tragedy Series. This past week, Mr. Dewey gave two interviews about his work.
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Get Outta Town, Pat Buchanan
“White Americans do not realize how black they are,” writes Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish. If, upon reading Sullivan, you find yourself questioning your racial identity, try the blog Stuff White People Like–sure, most of it is really stuff that dinks and yuppies like (class trumps race, as Walter Ben Michaels explains at the LRB), but it might help you brush up on the ways and loves of white folks: camping, pea coats, hating your parents, Wes Anderson, diversity, sushi, standing still at concerts…
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Next In Line from Two Dollar Radio
Is there an indie press that consistently punches up as high and as successfully as Two Dollar Radio? They’re the ones who unleashed The Orange Eats Creeps onto our shelves three years ago, and they followed it up shortly thereafter with the breakout work of Scott McClanahan. Now? Now they’re poised for a threepeat with Shane Jones’s Crystal Eaters, which has already earned its author interviews on Hobart and The Paris Review. (Bonus: TDR’s publisher on moving his outfit to Ohio.)
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Indigenous Peoples Day
Many people, cities, and states recognized Indigenous Peoples Day instead of Columbus Day on Monday. The New Inquiry takes a look at indigenous history in America. Pair with our review of Laila Lalami’s The Moor’s Account, which “underscores the notion that history often dismisses crucial voices.”
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Tuesday New Release Day: Ball; Offill; Cash; Finch; Quindlen
Out this week: Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball; Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill; This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash; The Last Enchantments by Millions contributor Charles Finch; My Life in Middlemarch by New Yorker staff writer (and Millions interviewee) Rebecca Mead; and Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great 2014 Book Preview.
Commitments
“In the morning, before we left, we presented my aunt with a gift from Indonesia, a package of luwak, one of four in Bon’s duffel. Civet coffee? she said, bemused. We were already savoring cups of coffee at her table, brewed in her coffee press from Arabica beans of her own supply.” An excerpt from Year in Reading alumnus Viet Thanh Nguyen’s forthcoming novel appears in the new issue of Ploughshares.
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Free Wodehouse
PSA: Many of P.G. Wodehouse’s earliest stories are available in the public domain. (h/t Anna Wiener)
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