“We can work harder to mourn, get better at it, connect it better to how we live, how we care for people, how we educate people. It’s politics, for me.” ZYZZYVA interviews Max Porter about his Grief Is the Thing with Feathers. Pair with Lidia Yuknavitch’s Millions essay on grief and art.
Light as a Feather
From Flesh to Wafer to Cash
Here’s everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the communion wafer’s place in free-market capitalism.
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Particularly Piquant Peppers
Move over Naga Viper. There’s a new hottest pepper in town, and it’s called the Carolina Reaper.
“Hemingway, a perfervid admirer of ‘grace under pressure.’”
Here’s a treat for all you literary legal buffs. A judge in the Middle District of Florida denied a request for a continuance in a murder-for-hire trial. But wait, it gets better. The defense attorney, Frank Louderback, is a perennial contestant in Hemingway Look-alike Society’s annual Ernest Hemingway Look-alike Contest, held in Key West each year, and the purpose of Louderback’s continuance was so he could travel to the Conch Republic for the competition. The judge denied the order by citing Big Papa himself. (via Nate Harris)
Can’t Get Enough LeBeouf
Shia LeBeouf’s written and illustrated a book of poetry entitled Let’s Fucking Party, and you can check out a review of it over at Panels on Pages. How do you think this project compares with, say, James Franco’s Palo Alto?
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The Best Books in Translation
Open Letter Books director Chad Post teamed up with Green Apple Books buyer Stephen Sparks to make a list of their twenty favorite books in translation. Among their selections is László Krasznahorkai’s Satantango, which Adam Levy reviewed for us last year, and which Post and Sparks describe as “a diabolical, haunting deconstruction of apocalyptic messianism.”
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Most Important Meal
“Anyone reading my fiction would never guess how seriously I take food.” Extra Crispy has an interview with Junot Díaz about his diet, with particular attention given to breakfast: “I split my time between two cities so when I’m in Boston there’s a Dominican restaurant called Merengue that serves the classic Dominican breakfast of mangú, fried egg, and fried salami. I leave off the fried cheese because well, damn.” If you’re hungry for more, might we also suggest our own Nick Ripatrazone‘s ode to the day’s first meal, as it figures in both literature and life.
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