March 4, 2013 Arts & Culture In the Buff: Literary Readings, Pasties, and Jiggling Genitalia By Rae Bryant The beautiful is always bizarre. —Charles Baudelaire My first time with the postfeminist, burlesque lit girl culture—pasties, G-strings, audience clapping to jiggling booties—I was in a fun little Brooklyn bar called the Way Station. I had, minutes before, read from my own work, what I thought was a wryly humorous and oh-so-literary postfeminist exploration of time, culture, and relationships. I knew the term “burlesque” had been thrown around on the billing, but to my Midwestern sensibilities, burlesque meant feathers and brief flashes of almost breast, the inner curves of almost vagina, with the full monty saved for fictional accounts. This, on the other hand, was a literary reading. So you can imagine my reaction to the dancer’s G-stringed ass shaking so close to my face I felt an instinct to throw up my hands in self-defense. I don’t think she meant to shake her booty in my face. Not mine particularly. It was coincidental. But it felt so personal at the time, in the moment so intentional, that I was certain something must be happening creatively. There were the dancer’s pastied breasts on my author page, alongside my book, compliments of my publisher’s well-intentioned marketing attempts. Cosmic. There was a message in this. I wasn’t quite sure what the message was except that it involved pasties and butt jiggling. All I knew for sure was that it was disconcerting to an oh-so-serious, postfeminist, gender explorer. Read More
March 4, 2013 On the Shelf Bookish Cakes, and Other News By Sadie Stein Happy Monday. Here are some cakes inspired by books! Nineteen Charles Bukowski drawings have come to light; most of them illustrated his column for the Los Angeles Free Press. A poem written by a thirteen-year-old Charlotte Brontë is expected to fetch at least £40,000 at auction. “If there has ever been a golden age for the unconventionally named author, it is now.” Bylines in the age of Google. The 2013 Tournament of Books is on.
March 1, 2013 Windows on the World G. Mend-Ooyo, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia By Matteo Pericoli A series on what writers from around the world see from their windows. When I was young, every morning I would take our hobbled horse and walk it in the dawn light. My father would say, “Sleep late like a horse. Rise early like a bird.” As I walked with the horse, I was very happy to have the little birds fly just above the light of dawn as they sang. The rhythm of each morning of my life still moves to the beat of my lovely childhood. From the window of my home in the center of Ulaanbaatar, I grasp the pale light in the east. Just as I used to bring in the horses pastured on the wild steppe, I spend time recollecting in my mind many thoughts that have taken flight. The images of life, transected by the window, are a chiaroscuro. I can clearly see the great seat of learning that is the National University of Mongolia. Sometimes it seems to be an image hanging on walls. A few steps from the window is my writing desk, made from Mongolian pine wood. When I sit at the desk, the world shifts into a different space. The history books grow thicker. There is no time to watch what goes on beyond my window. —G. Mend-Ooyo
March 1, 2013 Bulletin Story Time! By Sadie Stein We are delighted to report that our contributors are racking up all kinds of well-deserved honors! First, David Means’s story “The Chair” (issue 200) has been chosen for this year’s Best American Short Stories anthology. We also have seven nominees for this year’s Pushcart Prize: Sarah Frisch, “Housebreaking,” issue 203 David Gordon, “Man-Boob Summer,” issue 202 Lorrie Moore, “Wings,” issue 200 Davy Rothbart, “Human Snowball,” issue 201 Sam Savage, “The Meininger Nude,” issue 202 David Searcy, “El Camino Doloroso,” issue 200 John Jeremiah Sullivan, “The Princes: A Reconstruction,” issue 200Congratulations, everyone!
March 1, 2013 This Week’s Reading What We’re Loving: Ackerley, Reichl, Loy By The Paris Review There are moods in which even a used bookstore can defeat you, when you can’t imagine why anyone ever bothered, when every first sentence is an effort and a rebuke. Next time you find yourself in that mood, look under A for Ackerley (J. R.). His memoir My Father and Myself is a masterpiece of calm self-hatred. My Dog Tulip is the unforgettable true story of how he gave up on human beings and fell in love with a German shepherd. But the book I needed, and found, the other night is Ackerley’s one novel, We Think the World of You. This too is a dog book. Without having yet read the introduction (I’m a few pages from the end), I suspect it too is autobiographical. Set in London just after the war, it concerns a middle-aged gay man, desperately in love with a young prison inmate, who transfers his overbearing affection to the man’s dog, Evie. Ackerley was, by all accounts, including his, an unpleasant guy. The magic is how clearly he sees himself, with a clarity almost amounting to forgiveness. He is also very funny. Four chapters in, behind two pints at a quiet bar, I felt ready to face the world. —Lorin Stein I still mourn the loss of Gourmet—the exquisite photography, like eighteenth-century still lifes; the insane, days-long dinners that I never intended to prepare—but I’m grateful to have been directed to Ruth Reichl’s Twitter feed. Her entries are haikus of deliciousness: “Gray. Rain coming. Curled up with the cat, a book, and a comforting bowl of lemon rice soup. Edible sunshine.” “So cold! Tiny tug shoves a big black boat up the river. Bowl of butter-toasted oatmeal. Almonds. Apricots. Brown sugar. Heavy cream. Warmer.” “Cold. Sunny. Blue Tiepolo sky, dappled with clouds. Fluffy pancakes. Lace-edged fried eggs from Barry’s hens. Smoky bacon. Maple syrup. Yes!” —Nicole Rudick Read More
March 1, 2013 On the Shelf Dating the Iliad, and Other News By Sadie Stein Geneticists estimate that the Iliad was written in 762 B.C., “give or take fifty years.” This squares with what classicists believe, too. Barnes & Noble says that rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated. Today in fearless luxury, these bespoke bindings are very beautiful. And speaking of books as status symbols: the book in medieval portraiture. The critics have spoken! The winners of the 2012 National Book Critics Circle awards are: Ben Fountain, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (fiction); Andrew Solomon, Far from the Tree (nonfiction); Leanne Shapton, Swimming Studies (autobiography); Marina Warner, Stranger Magic (criticism); Robert Caro, The Passage of Power (biography); and D. A. Powell, Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys (poetry).