May 8, 2012 In Memoriam R.I.P. Maurice Sendak By Sadie Stein Photo by John Dugdale.It is with great sadness that we note the death, at eighty-three, of legendary writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak. In books like Where the Wild Things Are, Outside Over There, The Nutshell Library, The Sign on Rosie’s Door and many more, Sendak defined childhood for many of us. Last September, we ran this interview with Mr. Sendak; his inimitable wit, wisdom, and legendary cantankerousness came through loud and clear.
May 8, 2012 On the Shelf Rushdie Is Bored, Pynchon Goes Public By Sadie Stein The creator of publishing tumblr Real Talk has unmasked herself! It’s GOOD magazine executive editor Ann Friedman. Salman Rushdie pronounces Middlemarch boring. A great what-if: Bond by Hitchcock. The seven best dinner parties in literature? We say Anna Karenina was robbed! Brace yourselves for Pynchon in Public Day.
May 7, 2012 Bulletin Happy Golden Anniversary! By Sadie Stein We’re delighted to wish a happy fiftieth to an organization we think a lot of: Choice Magazine Listening. Founded in 1962 by the (wonderfully named) philanthropist LuEsther Mertz, CML is a free, nationwide service that provides magazine content to the visually impaired via quarterly audio anthologies in several formats. The anthologies have included the work of everyone from John Updike to Alice Munro, and we’re proud to say that over the years, The Paris Review has been well represented. If you know someone who would enjoy this free service, please call 1-888-724-6423 or e-mail [email protected]. Many happy returns!
May 7, 2012 Arts & Culture Stillspotting By Jillian Steinhauer I’m sitting in an apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens. It’s a nice apartment, with decidedly un-Ikea furniture and mild-mannered art on the walls. It feels well kept but welcoming, gently used. The room I’m in is a classic New York living/dining-room combo, its zones delineated by, on the one hand, a multicolored wood table and, on the other, a sleek white couch. The couch looks surprisingly comfortable, but I have no idea if it is; I’m sitting back-to-back with it, on a triangular block of foam. There’s a semicircle of these foam stools filling the room’s neutral territory and six people sitting with me. As we wait in awkward and anticipatory silence, I notice the sunlight streaming in from the windows. It glosses the shiny floors, which stay that way, I assume, because everyone who enters this apartment has been told to remove her shoes, just like in my home growing up. I don’t know who lives here. According to a map the Guggenheim has given me, this is “Erin’s House.” Erin is nowhere to be found, but she has generously loaned out her living/dining room for a few weekends in April and May, for a project called Stillspotting. As its name implies, the project is a search for still spots—quiet spaces, moments of respite, refuge from chaos—in New York. Read More
May 7, 2012 Bulletin The 1966: Spring’s Smartest Tee By Sadie Stein In celebration of its two-hundredth issue, The Paris Review is proud to present the Winter 1966 T-shirt. Modeled on a nifty shirt that we discovered on the back cover of issue 36, the design is George Plimpton’s own. As he stated in that ad, it’s “the sort of once in a very rare while shirt that makes an editor proud to do his job.” To celebrate the ’66, we took to the street, asking some New York friends to name their favorite Paris Review authors. Watch this space to see their picks. And for a limited time we’re offering a special deal: the T-shirt plus a year’s subscription for $40, giving you access to the greatest writers (and T-shirts!) of today. Printed on American Apparel 50/25/25’s, the shirt comes in men’s (S, M, L) and women’s sizes (M, L). To quote George, we beg you to “share with us the thrill of wearing it.” Offer good for U.S. addresses only.
May 7, 2012 The Revel 8, rue Garancière By The Paris Review On April 3, Robert Silvers accepted the Paris Review’s Hadada Prize for a strong and unique contribution to literature. These were his remarks. When something like this evening happens, you ask how you got here, and I thought back to the autumn of 1954, when I was a soldier at NATO military headquarters—called SHAPE—near Paris. One of the best things about working there was that, by some international understanding, practically everyone had Wednesday afternoon off—you could go to the Louvre, you could go to the Café de Flore. And there, one Wednesday afternoon, at the kiosk in front of the Flore, I bought a copy of The Paris Review and took it back to our international barracks at Rocquencourt and read it in my bunk. I thought I should know more about it. Read More