“As you can see here, it’s all about desire and longing.” Yes it is, Ragnar, yes it is. Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson is fascinated by what he calls “the oppressiveness of western culture claustrophobia.” His newest work, Bonjour, has shifted focus to poke fun at the ways in which the rest of the world elevates French sensibilities.
Dabbling in Cliché
New Deborah Eisenberg Story
In a 2010 profile, Deborah Eisenberg told us, of her current efforts at writing fiction, "I’m sort of desperately throwing myself against pieces of paper and only coming up with what look like bug smears." Now, as will shock none of her readers Eisenberg has come up with something considerably more appetizing: a new short story called "Recalculating." It's available, free, at the NYRB (!).
●
●
Finding Waldo
He's the world's most wanted fugitive, yet somehow the man wearing the red-striped shirt and nerd glasses escaped us until now. Yes, we're talking about Where's Waldo? At Slate, Ben Blatt found Waldo's pattern, so you can spot him every time and impress your relatives this holiday season.
●
●
A Great Career
Back in May, our own Sonya Chung reviewed All That Is, the first novel in 35 years by A Sport and a Pastime author James Salter. For another viewpoint (courtesy of the LRB), check out James Meek's assessment of the book alongside Salter's Collected Stories.
●
●
Longshot Magazine
Longshot is an online magazine with quite an interesting concept: "Over a 48 hour period from noon July 29, 2011, through noon July 31, 2011, thousands of writers, editors, artists, photographers, programmers, videographers, and other creatives from all around the world will come together via the Internet to make a magazine from start to finish." This issue's theme is "Debt" and you can follow its progress via Tumblr.
The Book Depository Map
For book voyeurs, the Book Depository has a live, real-time map of people actually buying books from them across the world. (via Guardian's Book Blog)