Detroit's Denmark Vessey is not just good at catching beer bottles. He also writes and produces and raps rap music. His new song is sort of psychedelic heavy metal rap, with a video to match. Similarly weird and fascinating (actually, far weirder), Dave Tompkins, a leading authority on the weird and fascinating, writes about his experiences with the late graffiti/rap/art legend Rammellzee for the Paris Review.
If it is war you want, it is war you can have, Paris Review. Yes, some of us are pitied, mocked, shamed, ignored, etc., some of us receive a veritable Push of language-related insults, all for just the way we use English. (I, for one, do not use the word "iron" in public because of how it comes out of my mouth.) Believe me, I surely know far better about the shaming than anyone who spends long weeks composing copy for your tidy, august publication. Yet NEVER, never, shall snuck be a word and saying that it is, with your sole case being "because people say it [...]
As you may be aware, The Paris Review has been publishing a series of blog posts called “The Culture Diaries,” which are apparently diaries about… culture. The diarists thus far have been a delightful assortment of sophisticated folks, a few of whom appear to consume culture—perhaps even Culture—in amounts that would stagger much larger land mammals. Anyhow, since The Awl is basically The Paris Review with more videos of bears, the editors here suggested that I offer a glimpse into my own humble work schedule as the poetry columnist for The New York Times Book Review. (This is not, of course, in any way a parody of [...]
For every freelancer who's ever had a story or a photo or an illustration killed by a capricious-seeming magazine editor, take heart! It happens even to the most famous of us. In the new issue of The Paris Review-edited by TPR managing editor and Awl pal Caitlin Roper!-R. Crumb explains why he'll never draw for David Remnick's New Yorker again.
Last night publishing giant Farrar, Straus and Giroux hosted people at Lolita, on the Lower East Side, to celebrate the launch of its new monthly online newsletter, Work In Progress. Lolita is small and black, and it intimates nighttime even when the day is still going strong outside. A hung-up canvas has the words "Life is Art" painted over a metropolitan landscape; the guests drank an inordinate amount of rosé. Ryan Chapman-an online marketing manager at FSG and the guy spearheading the new venture-was in the back, toying around on an iPad. His tie was marked by a nifty clip, and he had on thick-rimmed glasses.
