August 21, 2012 In Memoriam Prabuddha Dasgupta, 1956–2012 By Sadie Stein We were saddened to hear of the death of legendary Indian photographer Prabuddha Dasgupta last week at fifty-eight. As Geoff Dyer wrote in issue 200, with Dasgupta’s work, “we are in the realm of dreams and memories—exactly whose is never clear.” Pause Play Play Prev | Next [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
August 21, 2012 First Person Letter from India: The Permit, Part 2 By Amie Barrodale The story so far: Amie and Clancy find themselves stranded in a remote area, in need of a permit before they will be allowed to stay anywhere. The next day, as we were heading out to get a car, Tenzin, the proprietor of the guesthouse, stopped us and explained that it might take us two or three days to get the permit. He suggested we pack our room, offering to sell it while we stayed in Dharamsala. He said, also, that we could stay until August 6—we could stay as long as we liked. “I can shuffle rooms around,” he said once, and then later, “We have had a cancellation.” Still later he added, “You will have to change rooms, but your new room will be just as nice.” We shrugged our shoulders. So long as we had a room. In Dharamsala, we were directed to “District Commissioner” office 111. We poked our heads into a medium-size room shared by four men. Their desks were piled high with manila folders tied together with tennis-shoe laces. We said, “Protected area pass?” in a tone that suggested we might be arrested for asking the question. The administrators reacted as any American in her office might, should an Indian couple poke its head in and say three words in Hindi. Read More
August 21, 2012 On the Shelf Vintage Ads, New Appeals By Sadie Stein Book sculptures by Kelly Campbell. “I’d been accustomed to write about the old vanished world with its homes and its family life and its comparative peace. All of that went. And though I can think about it I cannot put it into fiction form.” A 1958 film of E. M. Forster in which the author talks about why he stopped writing novels. We have a soft spot for the READ posters, peopled with unlikely celebrities, found in the children’s room of every eighties library, but these are arguably more attractive! “Obviously, one must not take this article’s title too literally. Nor should it be read as anything more or anything less than purely subjective musings in no particular order.” Fifty Books That Will Make You a Better Writer. “A Masterpiece Has Happened!” (Can a masterpiece happen? We defer to the publishers of Of Mice and Men.) A list of classic book ads. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]
August 20, 2012 First Person Letter from India: The Permit, Part 1 By Amie Barrodale We were on our way to a small Tibetan colony in Himachal Pradesh. I lived there for about a year in 2008 and wanted to show it to my traveling companion, Clancy. Also the house where I stayed is very peaceful and nice, and I thought it would be a good place for Clancy to finish the book he is working on. We had about ten days to spend there and were in agreement: no cars, no roads. I wrote to the manager of the house, which is called Old Labrang. It is a guesthouse, but you can’t really stay there unless you get the okay from the manager. In the past when I stayed there, it was during the off-season. Since my last visit, the place had undergone major renovations and is now, by any standard, a desirable place to stop. Palazzo floors, an interior garden with flowers and orange trees. It costs eight dollars a night, and as a result I had a feeling that this time there would be a problem securing a room. I didn’t want to sit down and write the request. Read More
August 20, 2012 On Sports Field Notes By Sam Stephenson I arrived at the spring-training complex of the Tampa Bay Rays in Port Charlotte, Florida, around ten A.M. It would be a typical mid-nineties March day under a relentless sun. I was looking for Charlie Montoyo, the forty-six-year-old manager of the Rays’ top minor-league affiliate, the AAA Durham Bulls. Outfielder Jeff Salazar pointed me toward the “half-field,” a regulation infield with no outfield on the outskirts of the sprawling complex. A chain-link fence separated the infield dirt from a swamp. There, I found Jamie Nelson, catching coordinator for the Rays organization, tossing pitches to Venezuelan catcher José Lobatón, who was crouched in full gear. He caught the balls, exploded out of his position behind home plate—helmet and face mask falling off each time—and threw darts to second base, where Montoyo straddled the bag and gloved the throws, then tossed the balls underhand into a rolling cart. The three men executed this drill for fifteen minutes, saying nothing. I considered returning to the car for more sunscreen. Then I thought about “deep languor,” a term Richard Ford once used to describe the pleasant monotony of baseball and its routines. Read More
August 20, 2012 On the Shelf Literary Put-downs, Venetian Bookshops By Sadie Stein “It’s a bookshop right on the canal that floods every year, so the eccentric, stray-cat-adopting owner keeps his books in boats, bathtubs and a disused gondola to protect them.” A visit to Venice’s Libreria Acqua Alta. The fifty best literary put-downs. “The original Palatino was based on humanist typefaces from the Italian Renaissance, and was named after sixteenth-century Italian calligraphy master Giambattista Palatino.” A history of the most popular fonts used in design. And Then His Hands Went Below the Table: cheating, lying, and disgrace at the National Scrabble Championships. “Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You— / Not God but a swastika.” According to FBI Files, Sylvia Plath’s father, Otto, may indeed have had Nazi sympathies. [tweetbutton] [facebook_ilike]