July 30, 2013 Look Elements of Style, Live By Sadie Stein Brain Pickings’s Maria Popova has curated a fantastic selection of books for the New York Public Library’s bookstore. And that’s not all: artist Kelli Anderson did a 3-D papercraft display based on the chosen books, which, in turn, was made into a time-lapse video. It’s all great, but we couldn’t resist sharing this GIF of the Strunk, White, and Kalman Elements of Style collage being assembled.
July 30, 2013 Books Grrrl, Collected By Lisa Darms A few years ago, I started a collection at NYU’s Fales Library & Special Collections to document the feminist Riot Grrrl movement in its formative and most active years, from 1989 to 1997. Originally a reaction against the failures of punk to extend its DIY model of empowerment to women, Riot Grrrl encouraged young women to form their own bands, self-publish personal stories and revolutionary agendas in zines, and carve out safe spaces in a violent, misogynist culture. Riot Grrrl was not a centralized movement, and many of the donors to the collection never called themselves “riot grrrls.” I never did, even though I went to the shows, read the zines, and identified as a punk and a feminist. Looking back, I see Riot Grrrl as descriptive of a moment as much as a movement: one that many young people now seem to want to study, learn from, and revivify. This summer, the Feminist Press published The Riot Grrrl Collection, my book of almost 350 pages of selections from the collection. Below are a few of my favorites. This flyer, a pre–Riot Grrrl “manifesto” that was later repurposed for the minizine Riot Grrrl, is the first image in the book. Kathleen told me she made it in 1989, when she was volunteering at Safeplace, Olympia’s long-lived domestic-violence shelter and advocacy organization. Designed so that it could be folded up into a small rectangle with the word trust on top, this flyer was both a secret invitation and a public announcement, much like Riot Grrrl itself. Read More
July 30, 2013 On the Shelf A Battle for Souls, and Other News By Sadie Stein “But ultimately, I decided that the committees overseeing these sorts of things (editorial, sales, marketing) would never approve this. ‘The title is hard to read,’ they would complain. ‘The book is hard to read,’ I would silently retort. ‘That’s one of its principle merits.’” A glimpse into the process of cover design. Stephen King on opening lines. The London Fire Brigade blames a 10 percent increase of handcuff-related calls on Fifty Shades of Grey. Speaking of London: “In one corner sit the tut-tutting ‘serious’ readers. In the other, flirtatious undergraduates with their iPhones and social lives. At the heart is the battle for the soul—and control—of the British Library.” Libraries team up with airports in a campaign called, appropriately enough, Books on the Fly. Here’s how it works: “Scanning a QR code, available on cards throughout the airport, sends users to a site where they can access the Kansas State Library’s eLending service. Visitors without a library card are directed to Project Gutenberg’s mobile-optimized site, where they can download titles in the public domain.”
July 29, 2013 Arts & Culture Senior Poetry By Nathan Deuel In Beirut, there’s a shovel-faced gremlin sitting in front of the whorehouse. I’m just passing by, and he eyes me from his perch on a coffee can, where he rocks back and forth, opening and closing his fists, one bloodshot fish-eye firmly closed, the other spinning wildly. He barks out suddenly, a sharp noise like the backfire of an old Mercedes, and I turn to see his massive feet slap the pavement in black sneakers, his chest splattered in wet cigarette ash. Checking my watch, I still have ample time before I meet Marilyn Hacker, the eminent poet, who’s agreed to an audience with my class of elderly writing students. The gremlin smacks his lips, the size and shape of small fish, and I’m happy to be rounding a corner. Down the block, I see the lantern-jawed doorman with the scarf, patrolling his stretch of sidewalk. He’s got the chiseled chin, the squinting, seen-it-all eyes, and the mane of hair of an Arab George Clooney. Yet for all his confidence, I’ve never seen the guy do anything but smoke, smile, and gesture admiringly at some cool car and—today—the shapely form of a woman’s rear end. On the next block, the bellhop is a puppy dog in a gray tux. Months ago, he told me he’d have a new uniform. Another day he smoothed his collar and tousled my hair. Later still, he blew me a kiss, and on another day he pretended not to see me, then yelled out my name, which I had not realized he knew. I spied him at a local grocery store, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and in his basket was only tea and chocolate. Today he is busy. Read More
July 29, 2013 Arts & Culture Gin, Cigarettes, and Desperation: The Carson McCullers Diet By Sadie Stein From Modern Drunkard: Carson liked sherry with her tea, brandy with her coffee, and her purse with a large flask of whiskey. Between books, when she was neither famous nor monied, she claimed she existed almost exclusively on gin, cigarettes, and desperation for weeks at a time. During her most productive years she employed a round-the-clock drinking system: she’d start the day at her typewriter with a ritual glass a beer, a way of saying it was time to work, then steadily sip sherry as she typed. If it was cold and there was no wood for the stove, she’d turn up the heat with double shots of whiskey. She concluded her workday before dinner, which she primed with a martini. Then it was off to the parties, which meant more martinis, cognac, and, oftentimes, corn whiskey. Finally, she ended the day as it began, with a bedtime beer. Her recuperative abilities are the stuff of legend—she would rise the following morning, shake off her hangover like so much dust, down her morning beer, and get back to work. And thank you, Michelle Dean, for drawing to our attention!
July 29, 2013 Arts & Culture The Tournament of Literary Friends By Katherine Hill We’re tournament people, my husband and I. The way some people climb rocks or brew beer (I don’t know: What do other people do?), we draw sloppy 64-berth brackets in coffee-stained spiral-bound notebooks then set to vigorous, regimented discussion, rationally whittling down the field until an undisputed champion emerges. Notable competitions past include Most Intriguing City (Helsinki def. Buenos Aires) and Favorite Animal (Polar Bear def. House Cat). Most times, Matt is the tournament master, the committee of one who conceives and presents the field to me, which I then imperiously adjudicate, usually while reclining on a couch or airplane seat and eating something packed with butterfat. It’s a good arrangement, because he is a historian who likes categories and I am a writer who likes making things up. For tournament people, the next bracket is always a gift. Matt’s mom visited last month, and she brought with her a 32-person field of literary characters for each of us to complete. Our champions were to be not the greatest or most iconic or most influential figures, but the characters we’d most like to have as friends. “Would you want to be friends with Humbert Humbert?” Claire Messud had recently demanded of Publishers Weekly. She had a point. We took Alexander Portnoy instead. Read More