From time to time, we all second-guess why we live in New York — especially in the wake of a pleasant holiday weekend away. It’s crowded, expensive, and after awhile all of the ambition can become downright annoying. We’ve wanted to shout to new arrivals, “Turn back!” but we can’t, because at the end of the day, we love this city despite its many flaws. As have many of our favorite writers. However, the quotes we’ve assembled here are not without their own troubles. We regret to inform you that Paul Auster is missing from this list and we assure you that we feel horrible about it, but we couldn’t find a longer passage in his many books about New York that would make the cut. Perhaps you could suggest one?
Yesterday Linda Yuknavitch wrote a powerful, softhearted essay about the revolutionary act of reading in The Rumpus. Instead of succumbing to the dystopian reality of the 24-hour news cycle, she devours political books, writing, “There was only one thing I managed to ‘do’ that I think made a radical difference – not in stopping anything terrible that was happening, but in my own consciousness. I read books.” This is not to say she rejects taking to the streets and protesting, but that books can make an incredible impact on a mind willing to be transformed. She continues, “I spent hours in the University of Oregon library. I stole several books. I was so into reading them I wanted to bite them. Eat them. They made my brain hurt in the best possible way.”
Yesterday, James Franco tweeted a photo of what we can only assume is his bookshelf (who else would keep a bottle of whiskey with James Franco’s face on it on their bookshelf? Okay, maybe a lot of people, but still). Since we are no strangers to judging people by their bookshelves, we thought that this picture, with its clearly app-created distressed edges and faux ’70s sun-baked coloration, might provide a little window into the ever-fascinating world of James Franco. Or as much of a window as a series of low-res artifacts can ever provide. See the original tweeted bookshelf photo, as well as a few subsequent detail shots he posted after the fact, and all our commentary after the jump,.
In the first big David Foster Wallace documentary since his suicide, the BBC’s Professor Geoff Ward discusses the author’s childhood, legacy, preoccupations and battles with the gentleness of a true fan but the exactitude of a scholar. On the radio missive, which first aired on the BBC on February 6th, Ward interviews Wallace’s contemporaries (Rick Moody and Mark Costello, who was also Wallace’s college roommate), Don DeLillo, Michael Pietsch, editor of Infinite Jest, Wallace’s agent, Bonnie Nadell and his sister, Amy Wallace. He also mines archives of interviews with DFW — some of the most wonderful are with Wallace discussing irony — and accents his ruminations and conversations with passages from Infinite Jest as well as the forthcoming The Pale King.
If you’re a reader, a writer or even just a member of the television saturation generation, it’s worth a listen, and if you’re a fan of Wallace, the program may tug at your heartstrings, suggesting what might have been, but celebrating the man as he was. As Don DeLillo tells Ward, “I can’t think of anyone quite like him, at all… Wallace stands alone.” Click through to hear the documentary in its entirety.
It’s been a big few weeks for cult novels getting their own film adaptations. A New Yorker profile of Guillermo del Toro earlier this month provided a window into the preparations for the director’s version of the H.P. Lovecraft novella At the Mountains of Madness. Over the weekend, we got out first glimpse at the unintentionally hilarious-looking, Tea Party-approved Atlas Shruggedmovie. And yesterday, the news broke that Michel Gondry is taking on Ubik, one of Philip K. Dick’s weirdest books. All of that got us thinking about some of our favorite cult novels that are dying for big-screen adaptations. Check them out, and add your own, after the jump.
Our mothers always told us to write thank you notes. We tried, with varying degrees of success, to send cards thanking our aunts and uncles for their well-intentioned birthday gifts and write notes to our friends’ parents post-sleepover. But remember those kids who would always turn out immaculate thank you notes a day after they got the present? Not us. Oh well, we were good at different things. But Leah Dieterich is good at thank yous. Her blog, thxthxthx, is a “daily exercise in gratitude,” where she posts her witty, genuine thank you notes daily, acknowledging everything from wine to the noises her radiator makes. Here are a few of our favorite thank you notes — thank you notes to Dieterich’s favorite authors, of course. Don DeLillo, we hope you’re listening.
1. Eminem’s Recovery has been confirmed by Nielsen SoundScan as the best-selling album of 2010, with 3.42 million copies sold since its release in June; Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” was of most popular song of the year, with 4.4 million downloads. [via Vulture]
2. In what may be a move to harness some of Mad Men’s TV magic, NBC has ordered a historical series about Playboy bunnies as its first drama pilot for the 2011–2012 season. We think it should star Lane Pryce’s hot girl friend, Toni Charles. [via Deadline]
3. Some of you know that last night Queen Latifah hosted the 37th Annual People’s Choice Awards. But can you explain to us what was up with the evening’s first presenter, Jennifer Aniston? We had visions of poor Anna Nicole at the American Music Awards… [via Gawker.tv]
4. Robert Pattinson will star in David Cronenberg’s new film, Cosmopolis, which is an adaptation of the Don DeLillo novel of the same name. Marion Cotillard and Paul Giamatti are rumored to co-star. [via THR]
5. J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot is developing Pulp, “an hour-long crime drama set in a slightly heightened reality,” and will start shopping it around to networks as early as next week. [via TVLine]
It is that time of year again. Power rankings are being rolled out, fantasy players are drafted, trash is talked, and stockpiles of microwavable snacks are being stuffed in the fridge of your friend with the big screen TV. The start of the NFL season. When all other sports are forgotten and your co-workers won’t stop bugging you about joining the office pool. But if Sunday and Monday night games aren’t enough gridiron for you—or if you need something to do during the incessant commercial breaks—check out the following list of some of the best books about football.
1. Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal, known for her roles in Hud, The Fountainhead, and The Day the Earth Stood Still, has died at 84. [via USA Today]
2. Literary recluse Don DeLillo has given a rare interview to help promote Point Omega. [via Guardian]
3. Saturday Night Live has asked Glee‘s Jane Lynch to host one of the first shows of its upcoming season. [via Movieline]
4. James Cameron claims that even though the government asked for his advice, they failed to take his plan for fixing the BP oil spill seriously. [via MTV]
5. This is kind of cool: A reunion of models who sat for Norman Rockwell when they were kids. [via NYT]
Attention DFW fanboys and girls! We were recently alerted by our friends over at HTML Giant that David Foster Wallace’s archive has been acquired by the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin. They’ll house a plethora of DFW-related goodies: original manuscripts for Wallace’s books and stories, his research materials and college and graduate school writings, as well as his first ever known signature — at the end of “Viking Poem,” penned when he was only six or seven.
The archive will also maintain Wallace’s dictionary and library of over 40 authors, all of their works heavily marked up by the king of annotation himself. Add this to the David Foster Wallace Audio Project and you’ve got at least a month’s worth of heavy intellectual stimulation to go on. Don’t jump in your jalopy for a literary-themed road trip yet, however — the materials won’t be available to researchers until the fall, though a “selection” will be on view in the Ransom Center lobby until April 9.
After the jump, check out the first handwritten page of Wallace’s draft of Infinite Jest, a few of the annotated insides of the books in Wallace’s personal library (DeLillo, McCarthy), as well as a sampling of the words he circled in his dictionary, to be dissected and pontificated upon at your leisure.
