Walt dies.

If you are late on

sending someone an email today, this may very well be your get-out-of-jail-free card.

This is it, right? There’s no more after this one? Okay, fine. [Via]

“Silvio Berlusconi has said he invited escort girls to his parties ‘to boost his morale.’ In a candid exchange with magistrate Pasquale Drago in May, details of which were reported by Italy’s newspapers Sunday, Mr. Berlusconi said he had asked his butler to place the women that businessman Giampaolo Tarantini brought to his dinners across the table from him, ‘to lift up my morale.’ He said that if he had genuinely wanted to invite prostitutes, there were plenty in Rome already.”

by The Goldbergs

The ’80s brought us hip hop, cassette tapes, leg warmers, big hair and the Moonwalk. Relive this awesome time with a video tribute to the decade of glam, along with some help from ‘The Goldbergs.’ As Adam captures this hilarious family’s life in the 1980’s on state of the art videotape, it’s easy to see that ‘The Goldbergs’ are just like any other family, only with more yelling.

‘The Goldbergs’ totally premieres Tuesday, September 24th at 9|8c on ABC!

Yesterday we cornered Brooklyn Book Festival panelists and asked them: who do you like among the younger generation of writers? Some of them had great answers!

Claire Messud, The Woman Upstairs

Gosh, the younger generation being under what? [“That’s up to you.”] You know, I’m a big fan of Sheila Heti. Does she count as the younger generation? She’s over thirty, though, she’s 35. [She’ll be 37 on Christmas.] Turn it off a for second, I just have to think! Because I’ve been mostly reading old and dead people, lately, so it takes me a minute to — turn that off! [The recorder is turned off. Then turned back on.] There’s a writer called Bill Cheng, who’s a really wonderful young novelist. And keep an eye out for novels by Philip Klay and by Scott Cheshire [High As the Horses’ Bridles, July 2014], really super writers. You know, I feel as though there’s got to be others out there. I like Taiye Selasi. I read that book [Ghana Must Go] in the spring. I liked it very much. Then there are all sorts of ones that I mean to read, but I don’t think we can count them, so maybe we should stop there.

Lois Lowry, Son

Oh, that’s a question I can’t answer. I write for kids. I don’t read kids books. There are many young people writing kids books and I don’t know their work. Sorry!

Nicholson Baker, Traveling Sprinkler: A Novel

Well, that’s something I’d have to email you. It’s very hard. The problem with picking one person is that you’re slighting all the other people. [“It doesn’t have to be just one person.”] Well, there are many people who are doing incredibly impressive things — some of them I don’t know about, some of them I should know about, and some of them I do know about but don’t want to single them out. So, it’s the kind of question that is impossible for me.

Meg Wolitzer, The Interestings

Boy, to single people out…. [“You don’t have to single people out.”] You know, I don’t know that I always pay attention to people’s age on the back of a book. Although if you do the math you get a little terrified and want to die. But, yeah, I feel weird singling one person out from the younger generation because the work is so different from each other. There’s just a lot of really great things. I mean, I don’t know how old various people are, so it’s hard for me to say. Is Rachel Kushner a young’un? [This was effectively said with airquotes.] You know, Adelle Waldman’s book was really a pleasure. But I don’t know how old people are. It’s hard for me to say. But I’ll read anything good, and a lot of it is of course by young people.

Art Spiegelman, Co-Mix: A Retrospective of Comics, Graphics, and Scraps

Let’s see. There’s a lot that are percolating now. Gabrielle Bell is very interesting. Oh gee, Anders Nilsen, and, um, I’ve been following Dash Shaw’s work — a very ambitious, young cartoonist. I’m sure I’m missing about a hundred that I like just as much. Let me think. What’s her name? Lilli Carré, I really like what her stuff looks like. Graphically, I really like Blexbolex’s work and the stuff that’s coming out of Nobrow.

All I can say, more generally, is this is the most flourishing moment for comics that I could imagine — and actually couldn’t imagine prior to what’s happening now. A lot of ferment finally is really exploding.

Sapphire, The Kid

Oh, there’s so many people. I just did a blurb for this book, Ghana Must Go. Do you know that writer? I thought she was great. What I really want to try and conjure up is some poets’ names because I don’t think they get enough recognition. Tracy K. Smith, just fantastic work. Um, not that I’m just fixated on black women’s work! But those two — that’s a young novelist and a young poet who I just feel are almost defining culture in a certain kind of way. I think that’s fabulous.

Jules Feiffer, Backing into Forward: A Memoir

The younger generation of writers? I’m just very bad at names. There are a number of people I like, but whenever I’m asked that question I’m stumped. I go blank. I just don’t have it.

Jennifer Gilmore, The Mothers

I’m trying to define “the younger generation.” I mean, the default person I always say I love so much is Zadie Smith. But I really feel like I’ve been reading Zadie Smith now for, like, fifteen years. She’s no longer in the younger guard. [She’s 37.] So, um — turn this off! Turn this off! Let me think! OK, let’s see. Well, okay, Claire Vaye Watkins wrote a book called “Battleborn.” She’s a colleague at Princeton. I thought that was an excellent book. I’m interested to see what she does next. Dana Spiotta? Not the young guard, either, necessarily. She’s in her forties, probably. I admire her work so much. Who else have I read recently? I think I read old people.

Pete Hamill, The Christmas Kid

I like Edwidge Danticat. I mean, I haven’t read that many, to be fair. I like this woman who wrote this novel about Red Hook. I forget her name now. Geez, I don’t know why I’m blanking on her name — I just read it last week. It’s a very good book. She’s a good writer. If you call me later at [phone number redacted], I’ll tell you the name of the book! [Never heard back. It’s probably Ivy Pochoda’s Visitation Street.] Anyway, Edwidge Danticat came to this country from Haiti when she was 11, not speaking a word of English. She’s one of the most eloquent writers in the language right now. She’s got a new novel out.

Elon Green is a contributing editor at Longform.

Here’s your feelgood story of the day. I have taken a look at what lies ahead for the rest of the week and this may actually be as good as it gets, so you should probably savor it.

The Internet is going crazy over Madeleine Albright’s brooch! And why not? That’s what The Internet is supposed to do, go crazy over meaningless things and then go crazy over something else a few minutes later. Look, The Internet, a fluffy cloud over there! See? Suckers.

“[Tyler Cowen’s new book] describes a future largely stripped of middling jobs and broad prosperity…. Young men will struggle in a labour market that rewards conscientiousness over muscle. With incomes squeezed, many Americans will head to the sort of cheap, sun-baked sprawling exurbs that give the farmers’-market-and-bike-lanes set heartburn. Many will accept rotten public services in exchange for low taxes. This may sound a bit grim, but it reflects real-world trends: 60% of employers already check the credit ratings of job candidates; young male unemployment is high and migrants have been flooding to low-tax, low-service Texas for years. The left is sure that inequality is a recipe for riots. Mr Cowen doubts it. The have-nots will be too engrossed in video games to light real petrol bombs.”

“There’s a good chance you’ve heard: ‘Grand Theft Auto V,’ the latest installment of the storied video game franchise, took in over $1 billion in its first week. That’s more than any movie released this year, with the exception of ‘Iron Man 3’ (which happens to be the fifth highest-grossing movie of all time). At this rate, ‘GTA V’” could be a nontrivial contributor to the U.S. gross domestic product.”

“Mr. de Blasio’s answering machine greetings in those days seemed to reflect a search for meaning. Every few weeks, he recorded a new message, incorporating a quote to reflect his mood — a passage from classic literature, lyrics from a song or stanzas of a poem.”
 — I’m sorry, was this supposed to make us like Bill de Blasio less? That when he was young he had ideals which were tempered by experience? Because I am having a hard time getting upset. I mean, I am someone who has always suspected de Blasio of being an opportunist the other way, i.e. pretending to be more left wing than he really is. Thanks for making me feel better about my vote!