July 9, 2012 Contests Win a Bicycle! By Lorin Stein My predecessor George Plimpton was known for cycling around New York before it was either cool or safe (before, some would say, it was sane). And nowadays, we at TPR are still devoted city bikers; our rides can be found chained up and down White Street. So in celebration of the Tour de France—and thanks to the generosity of Hudson Urban Bikes—we, along with Velojoy, are giving away one of Hudson Urban Bikes’ Beater Bicycles Roadster. This classic city bike comes in a men’s and a women’s model, both of which may be seen in the diabolical and rather enigmatic illustration below. Read More
July 9, 2012 At Work Home to Darkness: An Interview with Playwright Tom Murphy By Belinda McKeon Sit in a theater for a Tom Murphy play and I can guarantee you one thing: you will come out of that theater rattled, and throttled, and staggered, in the best of all possible ways. It might take a long moment, afterwards, to catch your breath; use that moment to listen to the torrent of marvelous language that will still be surging through your head. That tussle of starkness and poetry. Murphy doesn’t give us lyricism the way that Irish writers, apparently, are meant to do; he gives us blunt and beautiful rhythm. He doesn’t give us laughter in that way either, though audiences will inevitably seek it out, and connect, in the sting of that laughter falling wrongly, with the defiantly dark intelligence of Murphy’s vision: guffaw at all the drinking scenes, if you will, but these are broken lives, and there’s no joking that away. Tom Murphy is Ireland’s greatest living dramatist. We say things like that in Ireland—Ireland’s greatest this, Ireland’s greatest that—as though it means anything in the greater scheme of things. Who cares what Ireland thinks is great? Tom Murphy doesn’t. But it’s true of him, that accolade, I promise you. Read More
July 9, 2012 Video & Multimedia Watch: How a Book Is Made, 1947 By Sadie Stein You already know how The Paris Review is made. But how about a book? Find out, 1947-style! We must say, despite the labor-intensive type-setting process, they make the publishing process look easy, 2012-style! Thanks, Page Views, for the tip! [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
July 9, 2012 On the Shelf Reading Dogs, Biblical Judges, Myers-Briggs By Sadie Stein Dogs reading books. Continuing the judicial book-report trend, a South Carolina woman is granted a reduced sentence on the condition she read and report on the Book of Job. She’s on it. Archival audio of a 1972 panel discussion from the 92nd St. Y titled “Women Writers: Has Anything Changed?” featuring Nora Ephron, Elizabeth Janeway, and Carolyn Kizer, moderated by Helen Vendler. Batman dominates the best-seller list (as well as the future box office.) Data: singular or plural? The debate rages on. In case you ever wondered about Anne Shirley’s Myers-Briggs personality type. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
July 6, 2012 Windows on the World Binyavanga Wainaina, Nairobi, Kenya By Matteo Pericoli A series on what writers from around the world see from their windows. I have lived in this cramped little cottage near Ngong Forest in Nairobi for the past year. After many winters abroad, I find myself unable to work indoors. Nairobi gets very cold in June and July, but I like to work free of the prison of the house. I love the tingling pullover of night sounds and forest sounds and the bite of cold breeze and distant cars and stereos. Sometimes I close my eyes and sway my arms into patterns to move with the sensations of the strong bitpieces banging about in my temples. The bitpieces are almost always word-based moods. They live and die fast. When the bitpieces catch characters or a probable course of narrative action, my fingers start to keyboard peddle furiously. If I stop, the whole world crumbles. If the bitpiece world crumbles, I stop. Days, sometimes bad-mood weeks can go by before momentum is found again. Tennis helps. And fermented millet porridge. And my lover. —Binyavanga Wainaina [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
July 6, 2012 This Week’s Reading What We’re Loving: Underwater Art, Analytic Philosophy, Betsy-Tacy By The Paris Review Two Paris Review editors in one New York Times magazine? That’s what I call a week in culture: Sadie Stein on Baby Bjorns and J. J. Sullivan on Faulkner. —Lorin Stein Like Jim Holt, I am convinced that some analytic philosophy is worth reading and rereading. If only one book could make the case, though, it would have to be Derek Parfit’s work of moral philosophy, Reasons and Persons. Almost thirty years old, it endures through a combination of novel thought and unimpeachable style. And, unlike much analytic philosophical writing, Parfit’s words have a vigorous sense of purpose, a compassion and focus reminiscent of Simone Weil and George Orwell. Favorite sections include teletransportation, indistinct selves, the repugnant conclusion, and the opening sentence: “Like my cat, I often simply do what I want to do.” —Tyler Bourgeois I am continually captivated by the underwater art of “eco-sculptor” Jason deCaires Taylor—or, rather, what happens to it. Taylor submerges his work—predominantly human figures—in the waters of the West Indies and in the Gulf of Mexico. Over time, the permanent installations come to act as artificial reefs, attracting corals, aggregating fish species, and increasing marine biomass. Most of Taylor’s figures stand with their faces upturned to the surface, their eyes closed, as they are silently and arrestingly overtaken by algae, sponges, and hydrozoans. The overall impression is one of indomitable spirit within metamorphosis: creatures coming to life. —Anna Hadfield Read More