Archive for the 'Literary' Category

Mary Kate, Ashley, and Charles Dickens

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Have the Olsen twins been reading Little Dorrit?
The New York Observer reports that the “puckered smile that makes the Olsen twins’ seem engaged (”We’re happy to be here!”) yet reserved (”Teeth are so crass!”) has a name. It’s called “the Prune.””
And I am reminded of my friend Frostine’s wonderful (but alas, silent) blog Prunes and […]

The Massachusetts Review, Spring/Summer 2008

Sunday, May 18, 2008

The current issue of the Massachusetts Review is especially queer and especially fetching, with contributions from Laylah Ali, Shelley Jackson, Eileen Myles, Frank Bidart, Lee Gordon, Marilyn Hacker, and many others.
From “Moments of Shared Glamour: A Conversation” by Gregg Bordowitz and Liza Johnson:

This constitutes amity. We confer and on this we agree:
All depends on […]

Our Story Begins

Monday, May 5, 2008

A review of Tobias Wolff’s collection Our Story Begins in Newsday: link.

Mailer Remembered

Friday, April 18, 2008

Here’s a link to my write-up in the Los Angeles Times of the Norman Mailer memorial last week at Carnegie Hall. I got to run on a bit about D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus’s Town Bloody Hall, a documentary of a 1971 debate about Women’s Liberation, which features a slew of literary celebrities as well […]

Film on Paper

Thursday, April 17, 2008

A review of Richard Schickel’s Film on Paper: The Inner Life of Movies in the Los Angeles Times: link.

Awkward, Definition, Party

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Alison Bechdel calls Ariel Schrag’s comic chronicles of high school, “a scathing and meticulously documented autobiographical triumph.” Ariel will be at Rocketship tomorrow for the release party of Awkward and Definition. With a slideshow, too! More here.

Facts & Fictions

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

My friend Luis Jaramillo is starting a new reading series at the Montauk Club, a Venetian Gothic palazzo in Brooklyn, complete with stained glass and mahogany—not to mention grandeur and decay. The first reading, with Alex Prud’homme and Kim Sunée, will be Wednesday, April 23.

Hollywood Novels

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Over at Newsday, I have a list of great Hollywood novels–one of my favorite literary genres. The painful part was choosing only five. Here they are.
Other contenders include:
Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann
The Last Tycoon, F. Scott Fitzgerald (also the Pat Hobby stories)
The Goodbye People, Gavin Lambert
What Makes Sammy Run, Budd Schulberg
After Many a […]

A Person of Interest

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

A recent interview with Susan Choi about her new novel in Time Out New York: link.

Installation view of Chris Larson’s Pause (The Dukes of Hazzard ‘69 Charger and Ted Kaczynski’s Montana Refuge), 2004

Looking Back

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Here are a couple links to my book roundups for 2007: Frieze Magazine and Newsday. Each article involves some scrolling. Definitely worth it to read all the lists–Ali Smith’s piece at Frieze is especially nice, and it looks like The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters should be the next book I pick up.