The Dizzies

"Simon had been made during his parents’ honeymoon in Madagascar. His father was part-Greek,..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 22:58:20 -0400

“Simon had been made during his parents’ honeymoon in Madagascar. His father was part-Greek, part-Irish Jew, a musical critic who wrote under the name of K. Kane. Everybody thought, with good reason, that the K., stood for Killer. He had married a beautiful Ojibway Indian mezzo-soprano who sang under the name of Minnehaha Langtry. The air-conditioning had broken down on their wedding night, and they attributed Simon’s shortcomings to the inclement conditions in which he had been conceived. Simon attributed them to his eight months in a plastic womb. His mother had not wanted to spoil her figure, so he had been removed from her womb and put in a cylinder connected to a machine. Simon had understood why his mother had done this. But he could not forgive her for later going on an eating jag and gaining sixty pounds. If she was going to be obese anyway, why hadn’t she kept him where he belonged?”

- from Venus on the Half-Shell (1974) by “Kilgore Trout” (actually Philip José Farmer)

BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL (read it—you will love it)

Sun, 12 May 2013 00:30:57 -0400

BLACK WINGS HAS MY ANGEL (read it—you will love it):

ichorandgrue:

From below the surface was a sheet of mercury and then I’d see it break roughly as she kicked against it coming down to me. It was like watching her through a sheet of clean green cellophane. She came and curved around me and slid along my back and shoulders. A futuristic kind of love. Love…

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"A story about the recovery of life…Like other cult writers—Salinger for instance, or..."

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 10:18:31 -0400

““A story about the recovery of life…Like other cult writers—Salinger for instance, or Vonnegut—Hoban writes about ordinary people making life-affirming gestures in a world that threatens to dissolve in madness.” —Newsweek on Russell Hoban’s TURTLE DIARY (NYRB reissuing 6/11)”

- TURTLE DIARY is for people who like IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE

foreignmovieposters: In the Mood for Love (2000). German...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 10:16:34 -0400

foreignmovieposters:

In the Mood for Love (2000). German poster.

millionsmillions: Though the clip above might not convince you,...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:52:36 -0400

millionsmillions:

Though the clip above might not convince you, Fred didn’t always have Ginger: The Boston Review looks at the many dance partners of Fred Astaire, as catalogued by Hermes Pan: The Man Who Danced With Fred Astaire and The Astaires: Fred and Adele.

GINGER

Coming in June—NYRB Classics’ reissue of Russell...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:37:38 -0400

Coming in June—NYRB Classics’ reissue of Russell Hoban’s TURTLE DIARY! Introduction by “Ed Park.”

A Different Stripe: Renata Adler/Issue Project Room/Greenpoint/tomorrow

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:28:31 -0400

A Different Stripe: Renata Adler/Issue Project Room/Greenpoint/tomorrow:

nyrbclassics:

This gentleman was reading Renata Adler’s Speedboat on the Q train to work this morning. You can hear Renata live in the flesh tomorrow at 155 Freeman St., between Manhattan & Franklin Aves in Greenpoint, as part of the Issue Project Room “Littoral” event series, tomorrow at 8 p.m….

Everybody knows how great this book is, right?

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:57:23 -0400

Everybody knows how great this book is, right?

“The narrative mutates organically, its circumference...

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 22:02:33 -0400

“The narrative mutates organically, its circumference always expanding to draw in another character, another history, another set of secrets; a common desire for flight humanizes and unites these free particles of humanity as they fire off across eras, and their dreams of transformation and transcendence multiply.” —Devin McKinney on Jake Arnott’s The House of Rumour

Devin McKinney on THE HOUSE OF RUMOUR

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 22:00:16 -0400

Devin McKinney on THE HOUSE OF RUMOUR:

Often “conspiracy theory” amounts to little more than asking what the connection might be between facts already existing in close but unexamined proximity. Fact 1: In May 1941, for reasons that are still far from clear, Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler’s deputy Führer, piloted a plane from Berlin to Scotland, where he crash-landed and was imprisoned for the remainder of the war. Fact 2: Four years earlier, a novel by Murray Constantine called Swastika Night, about the aftermath of a Nazi invasion, was published in England; in it, a top Hitler lieutenant named “von Hess” flies from Berlin to Scotland on a secret mission. Fact 3: Hess hadn’t read the novel.

ronhogan: An anonymous Tumblr likes the following books: Among...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 23:08:20 -0400

ronhogan:

An anonymous Tumblr likes the following books:

Among the Thugs, Bill Buford

In Cold Blood, Truman Capote

Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion

What books do Ed Park and I recommend for this reader? (Ed also mentioned a Korean memoir of royal politics and murder at the turn of the 19th century that sounds amazing…)

Ed Park is the author of Personal Days, named one of the ten best novels of 2008 by Time magazine. He was a founding editor of The Believer, an editor for the Voice Literary Supplement, and is currently editing books for Amazon Publishing’s literary imprint, Little A.

(taped at Book Culture, New York City)

thenewinquiry: Just as Patti Smith’s relationship with Robert...

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:16:14 -0400

thenewinquiry:

Just as Patti Smith’s relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe is what made Just Kids so moving, Hell’s relationship with Tom Verlaine gives I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp its emotional anchor, only Patti Smith had lived long enough away from these events that they no longer felt current. There’s no such closure or distancing to Hell’s prose, and the result is exhilarating in exactly the same way his music and the music it spawned is exhilarating. Hell is still angry at Verlaine, still doesn’t want to talk about Marquee Moon, still anxious to proclaim his own genius and still possessive of the importance of “Blank Generation.” He’s angry about slights that took place forty years ago. He still wants to fuck the girls he was fucking when he was 19, and still is racked with injustice over girls he didn’t get to fuck. He’s still jealous of the Sex Pistols, and he still misses heroin. It’s childish, bratty, and fantastic.

-“A Heaven of Hell” by Helena Fitzgerald

believermag: Episode two of the Organist (the new Believer/KCRW...

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 23:35:00 -0400

believermag:

Episode two of the Organist (the new Believer/KCRW radio show) includes snippets of songs selected by Devendra Banhart (interviewed in the episode by Ross Simonini).

Listen to Devendra’s full mixtape here.

Listen to the full episode here.

Also in Episode 2:

David Cross describes his aura-sniffing powers

Andrea Silenzi proposes a copyright-free alternative to the Birthday Song

Devendra Banhart on the language of songwriting.

Sam Lipsyte’s Old-News Summary

Thomas Rogers on the origins of the gay male voice

Brian McMullen’s indirectory of toll-free ogres

rosssimonini: Tomorrow night. Believer event! I interview Gary...

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 23:34:20 -0400

rosssimonini:

Tomorrow night. Believer event! I interview Gary Lutz at Greenlight Books in Fort Greene. @quailty introduces. @believermag

Any Human Underworld

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 21:45:00 -0400

Labyrinthitis

I loved Jake Arnott’s new novel The House of Rumor. He has done something quite amazing, which is to say he has written a novel with the scope and ambition of a Gravity’s Rainbow or an Underworld only it is as funny and delightfully readable as - well, truly I can’t think of an example, though it has something in common with William Boyd’s Any Human Heart or Anthony Burgess’s Earthly Powers. Very appealing book!

—Jenny Davidson, Light Reading

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