“On the outside, she was immaculately poised, always elegantly dressed, with perfectly cut, silver hair; witty, brilliant company, properly opinionated, impatient with compromise or cant, what the book blurbs called ‘fiercely intelligent.’ But this came at a cost.” Jenny Diski‘s husband, the poet Ian Patterson, remembers his wife for The Guardian.
Jenny Diski In Memoriam
The Reconstructionists
Maria Popova, who recently wrote a Year In Reading post for our series, has teamed up with artist Lisa Congdon on a new project concerning notable women working in art, science and literature. For each week in 2013, The Reconstructionists will present an illustrated portrait of one “trailblazing woman, along with a hand-lettered quote that captures her spirit.” Updates will also feature a “sort micro-essay about her life and legacy.” Up first in the series are Anaïs Nin, Gertrude Stein, Agnes Martin, and Hedy Lamarr.
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“Thousand-watt sadness”
The most depressing favorable review of a TV show you'll read this year, LA Review of Books shares why "Catfish: The TV Show" is so poignant and so very sad.
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Allen Ginsberg, Beat Historian
"It’s not often one gets the opportunity to take a course on a major literary movement taught by a founding member of that movement," but Allen Ginsberg's lectures on "the literary history of the Beats" are now available online via Open Culture.
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On Funny Bones, Etc.
Year in Reading alum Elizabeth McCracken has a new story collection out this week, and to mark the occasion, she spoke with Kelly Luce over at Salon about her writing, her Twitter obsession and -- strangely enough -- cannibalism (at least in the context of fairy tales). She also talks about the importance of humor, lamenting that “some young writers mistake humorlessness for seriousness.” (Related: Tanya Paperny wrote a eulogy for the translator Michael Henry Heim.)
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The Headless Horseman
"Every culture has its monsters," and Jason Diamond writes about the Headless Horseman and one of the oldest American horror stories for Electric Literature.
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Speaking of The New Yorker…
Is just me, or has The New Yorker been resurgent the last few weeks? In addition to the David Grann piece mentioned below, we've gotten: Bloomberg, diving, James Wood's most cogent essay to date on atheism and belief, and a F-B-P triple play. (That's Friend to Bilger to Paumgarten, for those keeping score at home.) And I read the fiction for five issues in a row - a personal best. I know they assemble these things far in advance, but it still feels like the Ian Frazier "Siberia" two-parter, eight years in the making, started some kind of conflagration of awesomeness. Thoughts?
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I’ve read (wolfed down) every single one of the (dozens/ hundreds of?) pieces JD wrote for the LRB … along with In Gratitude and The Sixties. Clear-eyed, honest, fearless and pretenses-shrivellingly witty from beginning to her literal end. I can think of thirty of her colleagues (and a few civilians), off the top of my head, I wish that we could trade for her back.
A link to JD in fine form:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n18/jenny-diski/it-wasnt-him-it-was-her