November 30, 2010 My Literary Hero Tough Guys Don’t Dance By Alex Gilvarry Norman Mailer in 1949. Photograph by John H. Popper. Why can’t we keep our literary heroes where they belong, at the top of the bookshelf next to all the others? And why must we ache for their approval, their admiration, their love? I can’t help but think of an anecdote about Norman Mailer, who was provoked one day to reach out to his hero, big Papa himself. Mailer had just completed The Deer Park and sent off a copy inscribed To Ernest Hemingway: —because finally after all these years I am deeply curious to know what you think … —but if you do not answer, or if you answer with the kind of crap you use to answer unprofessional writers, sycophants, brown-nosers, etc. then fuck you … Norman Mailer The book came back to Mailer unopened, stamped “Address Unknown—Return to Sender,” in Spanish. (See Mailer’s Advertisements for Myself for a complete telling in hard-earned italics.) I have my own relationship with one of my heroes, and the mere fact that I call it a “relationship” is in itself deeply sick. I’m veiling a juvenile obsession, hiding behind the very word: hero. In truth, this relationship consists of a few encounters, some good, some bad, the first of which happened one night at Hunter College when I was an M.F.A. student. Read More
November 29, 2010 A Letter from the Editor All Your Christmas Problems—Solved By Lorin Stein We just came up with a brilliant idea, if we do say so ourselves. For the first time ever, you can give our winter issue—plus a year’s subscription and a sexy new Paris Review T-shirt—in time for Christmas. Just order before December 20th and we’ll take care of the rest. How are we pulling off this Amazon-like feat of speedy delivery? By filling all orders here on White Street. That’s also why each gift package comes with a note signed by yours truly. And why our office is full of tissue paper. We are our own elves. Click here to buy it now.
November 29, 2010 Arts & Culture The Native Trees of Canada By Leanne Shapton Black Hawthorn As a Canadian, the shapes of leaves are part of my subconscious; learning to draw the maple leaf on our flag was like learning to ice skate. I feel a loyalty to Canada. I love how it is somehow still possible to be a speck in a vast landscape—the matter-of-fact feeling that something out there is bigger, greater (which probably contributes to what is taken for national humility and manners). I like that Canadian artists have always grappled with the idea of “north.” I love the mounds of beautiful Precambrian rock that swell up all over southern Ontario. Read More
November 28, 2010 This Week’s Reading Staff Picks: Turkeys and French Cinema By The Paris Review Most accounts of turkeys in literature describe the process of hunting or cooking them (Teddy Roosevelt’s sketch of stalking the “peevish piou-piou! of the sleepy birds” is rather lovely, even though the turkeys don’t live beyond the next page). In 1978, however, Donald Barthelme reinvigorated the genre with a grumpy but dead-on essay expressing his annoyance at this “mockery of a holiday.” This year’s new discovery dates from 1982, when Jim Nollman recorded his musical collaboration with a large flock of the delicious birds on Playing Music with Animals: Interspecies Communication of Jim Nollman with 300 Turkeys, 12 Wolves and 20 Orcas (America Folkways, of course). The feathered singers join Nollman for a rendition of “Froggy Went a-Courting.” Nollman’s aim? To “[ride] the shared musical energy without aggravating the turkeys.” Make it part of your holiday tradition. —Nicole Rudick It is never too late to see a movie you should have seen years ago, like L’Avventura. I think there is something to be said for seeing a great thing so late. It feels like being rescued. That’s what I saw this week, as well as two beautiful films by Philippe Garrel, J’entends plus la guitare and Baisers de secours (both introduced by our own diarist Richard Brody), plus Godard’s 1980 bummer Every Man for Himself, plus Alain Cavalier’s charming melodrama Le Combat dans l’ile, all about a fun-loving Parisienne who discovers that her weak-willed industrialist husband is secretly a member of a terrorist cell, and Le Amiche, and the first three films of Terence Malick. Yes, I’ve been out sick this week and have read not one submission. May Monica Vitti forgive me. May Monica Vittii forgive us all. —Lorin Stein If the Thanksgiving holiday hasn’t made you want to swear off eating altogether and fast in the middle of a spa in the California desert, then try the beautiful, bold, and hefty Essential New York Times Cookbook, edited by the fabulous Amanda Hesser, who cooked (and updated) each and every recipe in this 932-page book. —Thessaly La Force
November 26, 2010 Ask The Paris Review Nauseating Hobbits; A Perfect Reading Room By Lorin Stein I finally started reading The Lord of the Rings. I love the films so much that my friend told me, “Oh, you’ll love the books.” Lies. I’m only one hundred pages in and already I think, Really? Another five-page song about a tree or something? I’m looking at the remaining eight-hundred-odd pages and I want to cry. What do I do? That’s how I felt about the movie—that first one, where Bobo and Bubo and Cowslip and Ian McKellen all team up and meet the elves. It was New Year’s Day. The night before, my friend Elaine had thrown a dinner party involving blini, salmon, and a great deal of vodka. That morning I crawled out of bed, pulled down Dubliners, and read “The Dead.” Then I called Elaine. She had just done the same thing. Call it coincidence, call it friendship. We decided that the best course of action—really, the only course of action—was to take the leftover salmon and blini and a bottle of Belgian ale to a late matinee of The Lord of the Rings. We sat in the balcony. The movie lasted approximately five and a half hours. Experiments have shown that even brown bears in the wild will stop eating smoked salmon after the first half pound, or after three hours of sitting there with a pile of salmon in their laps, whichever comes first. After the fourth hour, the salmon will grow offensive in the nostrils of the bear. That’s what happened to us. I have eaten gravlax since then, generally on New Year’s with Russian friends, if there is vodka. The sight of a hobbit still makes me want to hurl. As for the books, you have read eighty-five pages farther than I ever could. Life is short. Read More
November 25, 2010 Arts & Culture The Elusive Turkey By Thessaly La Force Photograph by Danielle Spencer. “This is like Top Chef,” I muttered. I was standing with my boyfriend, Fred, in the D’Agostino’s on Hudson Street, with exactly three hours on the clock until we were due to arrive at David Byrne’s office in Soho bearing a turkey-shaped comestible made by me. I was a participant in the annual Todo Mundo Turkey Competition held by Danielle Spencer, Byrne’s art director, and I had no idea what I was doing. Read More