July 18, 2012 Video & Multimedia Watch: Interpublication Sexytimes By Noah Wunsch THE MAGAZINE MAGAZINES FANTASIZE ABOUT from The Paris Review on Vimeo. Story by Noah Wunsch Video by Carib Guerra & Noah Wunsch Special thanks to Eamon Kelly [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
July 18, 2012 On the Shelf Drama, Tantrums, and Bird-Watching By Sadie Stein High drama at the Oxford American. What exactly is going on? A (very) strong month for booksellers.The beach-read effect? A list of writers who throw tantrums. The great Larry McMurtry book sale. An American Writers Museum? “But the thing that bugs me most about Jonathan Franzen is that he’s becoming the public face of bird-watching.” [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
July 17, 2012 Bulletin This Saturday: Help St. Marks Books Relocate By The Paris Review Despite your best efforts, it looks as if our faithful friends at St. Mark’s Books will have to move. That’s the bad news. The good news—at least, if you care about keeping bookstores in lower Manhattan—is that they are trying to find a cheaper location in the East Village. Help them raise money for the move: join the “cash mob” at three o’clock this Saturday afternoon. The first five customers who spend $500 or more will receive a free one-year subscription to The Paris Review. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
July 17, 2012 At Work Return Engagement: An Interview with Rebecca Gates By Peter Terzian Image by Dan Sharp Rebecca Gates’s former band, the Spinanes, released their first album, Manos, in 1993. Indie pop was in its halcyon days, and Manos reached number one on the college charts. Like Elliott Smith and Lois Maffeo—her friends and colleagues in the Pacific Northwest music scene—Gates sang opaque, suggestive lyrics in a gentle and ruminative voice. But her dense guitar and Scott Plouf’s propulsive drums (they were a duo, with no bassist) were also inspired by punk. Strand, their 1996 follow-up, expanded their musical palette with experimental sounds and more complex instrumentation. After Plouf left the band, Gates moved to Chicago, where she recorded a third and final Spinanes album, 1998’s Arches and Aisles, with help from members of such simpatico post-rock bands as Tortoise and the Sea and Cake. Read More
July 17, 2012 On the Shelf Wharton Erotica, Peculiar Pulp, Encyclopedia Brown By Sadie Stein Encyclopedia Brown author Donald J. Sobol has died at 87. When Edith Wharton penned erotica. 8-bit illustrations of short stories’ opening lines. Peculiar pulp art. “Don’t deny the change. Direct it wisely.” How best to employ libraries. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
July 16, 2012 On Television Desert Moon: Breaking Bad in the American Southwest By Andi Teran There’s a moment when thunderclouds smother the sunset and the chile ristras begin to sway, when bits of smoldering earth intertwine with invisible rain, and you’re tangled in tumbleweed magic. Everything is burnt orange and cactus green, clay-tinged and warm. There’s mystery disguised as menace, comfort in spite of storm, and the sky gives off a phantom light that makes the concrete seem cinematic. This is the desert Southwest, my homeland, also known as Breaking Bad country. If you’ve made the television journey with Walter White—from tightey-whitey chemistry teacher to hairless drug kingpin—you’re already familiar with the show’s desert setting of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It acts as a silent character that, to me, is also its most important. Read More