December 4, 2012 Bulletin The Rise and Fall of Dandy By Sadie Stein On December 4, 1937, the first edition of children’s comic book The Dandy was published, also marking the first known use of the speech bubble. Today, the magazine’s seventy-fifth anniversary, marks the final print edition of The Dandy. The speech bubble lives on! [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
November 29, 2012 Bulletin Just Like Christmas … By The Paris Review Our Winter issue takes you north, to an unusual conference in Oslo with John Jeremiah Sullivan, Elif Batuman, Donald Antrim, and filmmaker Joachim Trier. In addition to the proceedings of the first Norwegian-American Literary Festival, this December we bring you new fiction from James Salter, Tim Parks, and Rachel Kushner, poems by Linda Pastan, Ben Lerner, and Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def), an interview with Susan Howe, and much more. Here’s Joachim Trier on literature and film: In Norway we have a great tradition of writing literature, whereas cinema … historically this is not our strength. A Norwegian friend of mine interviewed Don DeLillo and asked him, “What do American writers talk about, when they hang out casually?” DeLillo said, “We talk about movies.” I felt so proud! … and Donald Antrim on the fantastical: When I began writing in earnest, I wrote stories that were modeled on the stories I thought I should write. The stories were about my family, mainly, about my alcoholic mother and about being her son, but they weren’t successful. They were dutifully written and they failed … I went into a depression over this. I didn’t know what to do. I got out of the funk eventually, through the fantastic, through making up other worlds. … and Elif Batuman and John Jeremiah Sullivan on false starts: BATUMAN My editor at The New Yorker was like, Why don’t you just skip the whole part where you do all the wrong things and just do the right thing. SULLIVAN Thank you. Thank you, editor. BATUMAN And then he was like, Of course I’m just joking. He wasn’t joking! Neither are we. Subscribe now.
November 28, 2012 Bulletin Poe House Vandalized By Sadie Stein It seems like every week there’s a new indignity, whether it’s the destruction of the church where the Brontës worshipped, the theft of George Eliot’s desk, or, now, the vandalism of the house where Edgar Allan Poe lived and worked in the 1830s. For the second year in a row, the City of Baltimore has chosen not to grant the Poe House its $85,000 subsidy; as a result, despite efforts of supporters and friends, it may have to close permanently. In any event, the museum has been shuttered since September, and as such left more open to destruction; the front stairs have been stolen and graffiti painted on the door. Nothing that can’t be fixed, but we expected more respect from the officials of the only American city to name its football team after a literary allusion.
November 27, 2012 Bulletin Your Holiday Gift Dilemma: Solved! By The Paris Review Just in time for the holidays! Give the gift of The Paris Review to yourself and a loved one! For a limited time, when you buy a one-year subscription with automatic renewal, you can give a one-year gift subscription for only $25. Here’s how it works: Include the addresses for the gift subscriptions in the “notes” field when checking out. Each subscription will start with the Winter issue and, of course, includes access to The Paris Review digital edition. Need more than two gift subscriptions? Just call 866 354 0212 to cover everyone on your list. Offer available for U.S. addresses only. Gift subscriptions will not be automatically renewed.
November 26, 2012 Bulletin What We’re Doing: Double-Bind Tuesday! By Lorin Stein As we have now and then had occasion to point out, Daily editor Sadie Stein and I are not married. Nor is either one of us a parent. But that won’t stop us from competing for your love. Tomorrow at seven: Join Sadie and Doree Shafrir at KGB Bar for an evening of true-life storytelling. OR Join me at 192 Books for a live interview with the poet and novelist Ben Lerner, author of Leaving the Atocha Station. You can’t do both, but we hope you’ll do one! [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
November 20, 2012 Bulletin The Bad Sex in Fiction Award 2012: Shortlist By Sadie Stein The Literary Review has released the shortlist for the twentieth annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award. The nominees for achievement in terrible sex writing include: The Yips, by Nicola Barker The Adventuress, by Nicholas Coleridge Infrared, by Nancy Huston Rare Earth, by Paul Mason Noughties, by Ben Masters The Quiddity of Will Self, by Sam Mills The Divine Comedy, by Craig Raine Back to Blood, by Tom Wolfe Mr. Wolfe, you will recall, is a previous winner, having taken top honors in 2004 for I Am Charlotte Simmons. He was deemed eligible for this year’s awards by dint of passages like the following: But then the tips of her breasts became erect on their own, and the flood in her loins washed morals, despair, and all other abstract assessments away in a cloud of some sort of divine cologne of his. Now his big generative jockey was inside her pelvic saddle, riding, riding, riding, and she was eagerly swallowing it swallowing it swallowing it with the saddle’s own lips and maw—all without a word. Bad, assuredly. But is it bad enough to take the prize? Find out on December 4. Until then, follow the process via @lit_review. (The tweets are tagged as #LRBadSex2012.) And for a glimpse into the judging process, check this out: