The “David Mamet Appliance Center” has some predictably abrasive customer service representatives. Here is Peter McCleery for McSweeney’s imagining a hilarious and existentially hopeless exchange between customer and technician. The Millions has even more to satisfy your fictitious-Mamet fix: an imagined symposium with Mamet, Francine Prose, and James Wood among others.
David Mamet Appliance Center
The Canyons Gets a Trailer
After securing the necessary funds on its Kickstarter page, and after enduring Lindsay Lohan’s trademark version of “professionalism,” The Canyons looks like it will finally be released next month. The film, which was written by Bret Easton Ellis and directed by Paul Schrader, got its first official trailer this week.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Butler; Lurie; Jemc; Steinke; Jacobson; Rosner; Grannec; Beckett; Oliver
New this week: 300,000,000 by Blake Butler; Quick Kills by Lynn Lurie; A Different Bed Every Time by Jac Jemc; Sister Golden Hair by Darcey Steinke; J by Howard Jacobson; Electric City by Elizabeth Rosner; The Goddess of Small Victories by Yannick Grannec; The Letters of Samuel Beckett; Volume 3; and Blue Horses by Mary Oliver. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great Second-half 2014 Book Preview.
Septuagenarian Akutagawa Prize Winner
Paging Sonya Chung and the rest of the Bloom gang: one of this year’s Akutagawa Prize winners is a seventy-five year old woman named Natsuko Kuroda. How’s that for a Post-40 Bloomer? (h/t Dustin Kurtz)
Cooking with 2 Chainz
“Put on your Versace apron,” and “if wearing a four-finger ring, carefully place it on a side table before starting to cook.” It’s time to explore the 28-page “cookbook” included in 2 Chainz’s latest album, B.O.A.T.S. 2 #Metime.
Kid-Friendly
Masha Gessen (who recently agreed to write a book on the Boston bombers) told a journalist in New Zealand she’s “probably” moving out of Russia. Why? “It’s one thing to bring up your kids in a place that’s risky and difficult; I think in many ways it’s enriching them, and I’m glad my kids have that experience,” she said. “It’s another thing to bring up your kids in a place that’s hopeless. “
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The Myth of the Recluse
Nathan Bransford points out that nobody is “just an author.” Even Thomas Pynchon promotes himself.
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Democratized Words
Ever heard of the Collins Dictionary? It’s the open-source lexicographic collection which apparently accepted “thanx,” but likewise rejected “alleygation” and “mobydickulous.” Consider it the happy medium between The American Heritage and Urban dictionaries.
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