April 23, 2013 Quote Unquote Happy Birthday, J. P. Donleavy By Sadie Stein “Writing: turning one’s worst moments into profit.” —J. P. Donleavy
April 23, 2013 On the Shelf Bargain Books, and Other News By Sadie Stein It’s World Book Night. When you buy a book for $3.50 and it’s signed by Martin Luther King. The Digital Public Library of America is live! The craft behind Toronto’s Type Books storefront. RIP Mud Luscious Press.
April 22, 2013 Nostalgia Outside the Paris Pavilion By Sadie Stein On this day in 1964, the New York World’s Fair kicked off in Flushing Meadows, Queens. And we were there! Below, the brochure for the fair’s smallest pavilion.
April 22, 2013 The Print Series Jim Dine, Untitled, 1975 By The Paris Review Since 1964 The Paris Review has commissioned a series of prints and posters by major contemporary artists. Contributing artists have included Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Bourgeois, Ed Ruscha, and William Bailey. Each print is published in an edition of sixty to two hundred, most of them signed and numbered by the artist. All have been made especially and exclusively for The Paris Review. Many are still available for purchase. Proceeds go to The Paris Review Foundation, established in 2000 to support The Paris Review.
April 22, 2013 First Person Red and Blue By Anna Wiener It was October, and I was alone. I lived in Greenpoint with a close friend from college, but we were rarely home, and never home together. We floated in and out of each other’s lives. We left ourselves reminders that we had both been there: wet towels tossed over the shower curtain, mugs face down in the sink. I was reading or writing or worrying; I can’t remember, but it hardly matters. The curtains were open, and the head of the plastic owl strapped to the ledge outside of the living room window was swirling. In retrospect, I should say “swirling ominously,” but this was not unusual: it was loose and spun wildly in light breeze. What I mean to say is I didn’t think twice about anything, certainly not about the lights flashing blue-red-blue-red-blue-red-blue against the wall, until I did. I went downstairs to take a look. Around the corner, an intersection was cordoned off with orange police tape. Two cruisers blocked traffic. A small van had stopped in the middle, and as I approached I saw that it was empty and the hood was crushed against the windshield. Read More
April 22, 2013 On the Shelf Mixed-Up Tweeters, and Other News By Clare Fentress E. L. Konigsburg, author of beloved children’s titles The View from Saturday, A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, and, most famously, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, has died, at eighty-three. Speaking of people in museums past closing hours, Whitey Bulger is the subject of another book. (Considering he is “known to be a book reader,” maybe he won’t mind too much.) In other Boston news, The New Yorker talks literature, violence, and the Caucasus in light of last week’s tragic events. And in case you missed this informative memo to tweeters: Chechens are not from the Czech Republic. The 2012 LA Times Book Prize winners have been announced.