May 4, 2012 This Week’s Reading What We’re Loving: Sake Bars, Met Balls, and Rhubarb By The Paris Review I’m hooked on The Briefcase, by Hiromi Kawakami, a sentimental novel about the friendship, formed over late nights at a sake bar, between a Tokyo woman in her late thirties and her old high school teacher. It’s interesting enough to read about an aging woman drawn to an older man; when this attraction comes wrapped up in Japanese nostalgia for old fashioned inns, mushroom hunting, refined manners, and Basho, how can a person resist? I can only imagine what wizardry must have gone into Allison Markin Powell’s translation. —Lorin Stein There are so many intriguing events associated with the PEN World Voices Festival this week. One I’ll be catching for sure is this little-seen documentary on Diane Arbus, actually a taping of the photographer discussing a slide show of her work in 1970. The viewing will be followed by readings from Diane Arbus: A Chronology by Francine Prose, Michael Cunningham, and Arbus’s daughter, Doon. —Sadie Stein The PULSE Contemporary Art Fair is here! Today through Sunday at the Metropolitan Pavilion, galleries from around the world are exhibiting the best of contemporary art. Whether your interest and pockets are shallow or deep, you could easily be held captive for hours, lost in the endless spectacles and hidden nooks. It’s an adventure, so may I suggest comfortable shoes? —Elizabeth Nelson Two years ago I started reading (and devouring) the Smitten Kitchen blog. I have since made more than thirty of her recipes and have been waiting for her forthcoming first cookbook. This week she posted a sneak peek, so time to start some seasonal cooking—especially as farmer’s markets everywhere have the first spring produce, like asparagus and rhubarb! —Emily Cole-Kelly Most people will eat fifteen hundred PB&Js before graduating high school. I’ve easily consumed twice that since then. I love peanut butter. I love the taste of it mixed with a good jam. Statistics about the sandwich are always fascinating: women prefer creamy and men crunchy (I only eat crunchy); the vast majority of people put the peanut butter on first (I do, too, but it just makes sense, right?). Leave it to Ruth Reichl to make a great thing even better. Who knew that a little salt and heat could improve upon perfection. —Nicole Rudick My invitation to the Met’s Costume Institute Ball seems to have been mysteriously lost in the mail, but reading through the gorgeous companion volume to the Schiaparelli and Prada exhibition is (I’m sure) every bit as interesting, and nearly as glamorous. —S.S.
May 4, 2012 Bulletin Moon Madness By Sadie Stein As Shakespeare said, “It is the very error of the moon … she comes more nearer earth than she wont, and makes men mad.” This weekend will see the biggest full moon of the year. The “supermoon” will be at its most visible Saturday night, and we are already scouting our vantage points! It seems fitting that we should mark the event with a visit to the newly available online picture archive of the venerable Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. Founded in 1660, the Royal Society is the world’s oldest scientific library. It’s easy to lose yourself on the site for a few hours—and you should: whether your tastes run to seventeenth-century botanical studies, early lunar photography, or the history of telescopy, you’ll be rewarded by a collection that, a week ago, might have required a plane ticket. And since 2012 also marks the 110th birthday of the classic silent short A Trip to the Moon, it is meet and right that we pay tribute to Georges Méliès as well! Happy viewing, wherever you are.
May 4, 2012 On the Shelf Bacon, Sci-Fi, and Feuds By Sadie Stein The literary feud hall of fame! Ploughshares launches the fascinating First Drafts, in which writers discuss their revision process. Novelist Jane Rogers wins the UK’s science-fiction prize, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, for The Testament of Jessie Lamb. The future of the e-reader? Neil Gaiman’s reading and listening list. New York’s children’s bookstore Books of Wonder plays host to a bacon bakery.
May 3, 2012 On Television Dear Sally Draper, Maybe Wait a Few Years to Read This By Adam Wilson Dear Sally Draper, You know what’s weird? You could be my mother. I mean, you’re not, obviously. My mom’s a ginger and Jewish, and her sixties childhood was really quite different from yours, what with her not having Don Draper as a dad or Betty as a mom, and her not seeing her step-grandmother go down on Roger Sterling in the back room at an American Cancer Society Benefit. So yeah, sucks to be you. But what if things had gone differently? What if my mom had stayed with that painter who looked like Charles Manson and once punched my grandfather in the face, and my dad had met you instead among the bohemians inhabiting seventies Jerusalem, drinking wine on Old City balconies, discussing poetry and politics, and inhaling the sweetly mingling odors of bellflower and frying falafel? Read More
May 3, 2012 Bulletin PEN Presents: “Reviewing Translations” By Sadie Stein Here at The Paris Review, the art of translation is a subject near and dear to our hearts. Tonight, join Haykanush Avetisyan, Ruth Franklin, Julya Rabinowich, and our very own Lorin Stein as they discuss the tricky business of reviewing translations. To quote the PEN World Voices site, When a translated work is reviewed, what exactly is being critiqued? Is it the work itself or the quality of its translation? How does reviewing a translation differ from reviewing a work in its original language? Should critics be bilingual? Should they be experts in the literature and history of foreign cultures? Cosponsored by the Austrian Cultural Forum, Ledig House, the PEN Translation Committee, the National Book Critics Circle, and the School of Writing at the New School. For details, see the PEN Web site.
May 3, 2012 Bulletin Introducing the 1966 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. In the coming days, 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.