Monday, February 28, 2011
An Excerpt From "The Late American Novel": The Best Books Will Be Written Long After You Are Dead
This essay is from the new collection The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books, co-edited by Jeff Martin and C. Max Magee, of The Millions. In the book, Jonathan Lethem, Rivka Galchen, Nancy Jo Sales and many others consider the landscape as the literary world faces a sudden change in the way we buy, produce and read books.
Say it was 1910, and say on a breezy day you stopped me on Broadway, and say you asked me: “Sir, whither American letters?”
And say that the answer I gave you was fantastically correct. Say I predicted all about Modernism. Say I advised you to have your transatlantic agents ship you first editions of Dubliners (1914) and The Voyage Out (1915). Say I explained the plots and the modes of The Great Gatsby (1925) and The Sun Also Rises (1926) and The Sound and the Fury (1929), and say I did it incisively, with historical cross-references. Say I told you about, oh, Pearl Buck. And Saul Bellow and Toni Morrison. Say I even noted the late-century curios, the Room Temperatures (1990) and the Autobiographies of Red (1998). And say you were able to comprehend it all, not just the authors and the publication dates, but the meaning of all the millions: the mass migrations and the mass deaths and mass social movements, all the hours between Now and Then. How could you possibly have responded? READ MORE
The Fight Over the Wisconsin Capitol Building
#wiunion capitol staffers confirm that lobbyists were let into building and firefighters and public denied access.
The Way Forward WI
TheWayForwardWI
It's been a long day in Wisconsin. People say they're blocking some windows at the Madison Capitol building to keep food and people (presumably) from being brought in and out. And here are the crowd control barriers being installed. More of this will make some sense when, you know, someone starts reporting on it, I guess? (via)
Millennial One-Minute News Service Is "Snack Media"
Say a warm welcome to "One Minute News, a video-based online start-up conceived by former MTV advertising executive Doug Greenlaw—and his son, Mack, whose resume also includes a stint at the ostensible music network." Haha, ostensible. Haha, working with your dad. Anyway! Mack said that "we love Gawker, we love the Huffington Post," but they "don't seek to overshadow or muscle out any pre-existing entities." Well they might! Big words, launch boy. True, they are proactive and in your face with their snackifying media programming! Presumably this is on the Internet somewhere, if you have the attention span to find it. I couldn't, just the BBC's own "One Minute News" program and some other stuff, and I couldn't Google up Mack Greenlaw either, unless he's the voice of Garris Cain in the Battlestar Galactica videogame. I hope he's cute though, that's such a great name! Right? Maybe I'll look him up on Facebook later. Or maybe there's something in the fridge? HEY MOM. MOM, IS THERE ANYTHING IN THE FRIDGE THAT ISN'T GROSS? No don't come in here, THIS IS STILL MY ROOM, MOM. Anyway, I'm sure they'll totally house the Internet.
Here you will find a picture of a giant egg laid by a chicken in Iowa. Before you panic, please take note: "An egg approaching that size is unusual, but not unheard of, egg experts said." [Via] | February 28, 2011
What sinister cabal is behind the massive conspiracy to keep the world from knowing why Natalie Portman wore "Rodante" [sic] rather than Dior at last night's Oscars? I'm guessing it had something to do with the Jews. I mean, it usually does. | February 28, 2011
The Best Black Dolls I Had as a Kid
There are fewer than 12 hours left in Black History Month, so as a final send-off, here are fewer than 12 of my favorite black dolls I had growing up.
(Black) Totally Hair Barbie
Because black girls look better in neon than anyone else. READ MORE
Everyone Else to Follow on Twitter: @NekoCase, @BlakeHounshell and More
She made herself ill eating cat shit then "pressure washed" the inside of my truck with spray poo. The "turducken" of shit! #ZERORESALEVALUE
Neko Case
NekoCase
The Southern Strategy
I spent the spring before I moved to Brooklyn diligently flattening out what was already a pretty mild Southern accent. The way I looked at it, I was moving up Nawth with no particular intention of returning to Kentucky.
What I didn’t know, being naïve and geographically provincial, was that in diluting my accent I was inadvertently losing something of myself. Sure, now I didn’t sound different than my colleagues from Connecticut, Boston, Pennsylvania or even Des Moines. But that turned out to be a shame. Nearly everyone I met those first few years would, upon learning where I was from, immediately ask me, “What happened to your accent?” Pride in my My Fair Lady fix turned to remorse at my Gone With the Wind loss. READ MORE
Inside TV's Top Comedy Incubators
The past five years have seen a major upturn in the number of comedies on television. With dozens of networks each developing their own stables of dependable comedy shows, there are a wide variety of options for the humor-hungry TV viewer. Never in the history of television have there been so many comedies on TV, nor has there been such a diverse assortment of programs. We’re in the middle of the Golden Era of TV Comedy. While the Internet, hundreds of cable channels, video games, and other technological advances have fragmented the viewing audience for all shows and no one comedy is as widely-viewed as "Seinfeld," "Friends" or "The Cosby Show" were in their heydays, TV comedy as a whole is getting more attention than ever.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this TV comedy renaissance is the number of networks — running the gamut from broadcast to basic cable to premium — emerging as hubs for trendy, innovative programming. Networks with a strong history with comedy are struggling to defend it, while newer comedy operations are scrambling to find their niche and establish their hits. READ MORE
Chortling Baby Delighted By Wanton Destruction
This video is a month old and already has more than 300,000 views, and you know what? I don't care. This is exactly what we need on this gloomy Monday afternoon. Chortle on, paper-hating baby! Chortle on. [Via]
"Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody's Analytics, is out with a new report today suggesting that the economy could lose 700,000 jobs by the end of next year if Republicans push through $61 billion in cuts called for in their 2011 budget proposal.... Monday's report comes on the heels of an analysis from Goldman Sachs projecting that the Republican plan, if put into action, could slow the economy's growth by up to 2 percentage points this year alone." Presumably, however, these are union or government jobs, which we all know don't count. | February 28, 2011
Breaking! David Gergen Really Changing Twitter Handles!
In case you can't tell, today is the LAST DAY of CNN's David Gergen on Twitter at Gergensvoice and now he is just David_Gergen. He is really really concerned that you know this. Even if he has to tell all of you ONE AT A TIME.
James L. Brooks discusses Broadcast News, one of the ten best movies of the '80s and almost certainly the best of his career. If you have yet to see it you should leave work right now and go home and do so. [Via] | February 28, 2011
Willow Smith, 21st Century Girl, Now Owns America
Willow Smith, born October 31, 2000, will perform this on Oprah tomorrow. It's going to be huge, yes, though the chorus itself is kinda blah, and she needs to get that Ke$ha rap-singing whine out of her voice. Otherwise? IT'S WILLOW-TIME.
41 Songs By Randy Newman You Should Listen To Before You Bitch About Music Written Expressly For A Childrens' Movie
"Baltimore"
"Burn On"
"Christmas In Cape Town"
"Dixie Flyer"
"Falling In Love"
"Ghosts"
"God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)"
"Guilty"
"Half a Man"
"Have You Seen My Baby" READ MORE
