1. The Flaming Lips are set to start recording new material later this month, and according to Wayne Coyne, they plan to release a new song every month this year. [via NME]
2. John Goodman is joining Sandra Bullock and Tom Hanks in the cast of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Stephen Daldry’s adaptation of the Jonathan Safran Foer novel. [via THR]
3. “We’re sort of emailing each other, we don’t know where that’s gonna go. But I am such a big fan of Cee Lo, he is so gorgeous and talented and amazing.” – Gwyneth Paltrow says that she might be performing her cover of “Fuck You” with Cee Lo on Saturday Night Live this weekend — even though the musical guest is The Black Keys. Update: Gwyneth Paltrow will host SNL January 15 with musical guest Cee Lo, which makes a lot more sense.
4. Jason Schwartzman and his wife, fashion designer Brady Cunningham, are the proud parents of a baby girl: Marlowe Rivers Schwartzman. [via People]
5. The lead producer of Fela! is in discussions with producers in Lagos, Nigeria (home of the title character, Fela Anikulapo Kuti), to take the Broadway musical there in the late winter or early spring. The show closed in New York on Sunday after more than 14 months of performances. [via ArtsBeat]
Bonus link: Andrea Zuckerman is turning 50!
Today at Flavorpill, we witnessed the evolution of hands at gigs. We got hungry looking at this candy portrait of Tina Fey. We were excited to hear that IFC has greenlit Portlandia, an original comedy series about the inhabitants of Portland, Oregon. We wanted to live inside of a life-size 600-pound gingerbread house. We couldn’t believe that Kanye canceled his upcoming Today Show performance because of Matt Lauer — now he really looks angry and spoiled. We were intrigued by Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book Tree of Codes, which he constructed by taking his favorite book, The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz, and cutting out words to form a new story. We were blown away by these unreal 3D murals by Eric Grohe. We wondered why the “Andy Warhol New York City Diet” never became a full-blown fad. We saw what it would look like if Banksy tagged Downing Street. We loved this list of the top picture books from 2010. We wondered if we’re going to be able to afford a Thanksgiving turkey this year. And finally, we were surprised to discover that Carey Mulligan is the current frontrunner to play Daisy in Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby. At least it’s not Blake Lively…
There are many writers, editors, and publishers featured in True Prep
, Lisa Birnbach’s follow-up to the original blue blood Bible, 1980′s The Official Preppy Handbook
. In a chapter entitled “The True Pantheon,” Birnbach sets her laurel wreath around the privileged heads of Ben Bradlee, Alfred A. Knopf, Paul Rudnick, Eric Segal, and even Dr. Seuss. And, bien sûr, John Updike, Edith Wharton, and F. Scott Fitzgerald also get their dues. But who are the preppy writers of Generations X and Y? Who will carry on the gin-soaked torch of those gone before? Here’s a partial list of prep-schoolers, Ivy Leaguers, and dapper literati who are turning out some of the most exciting American fiction on the current lit scene.
Read More »
Today at Flavorpill, we LISTENED (!!!) to Roger Ebert speak with his new computerized voice. We looked at some of pop culture’s most famous masks. We had a geeky good laugh over The Daily Show‘s best comic book moments. We sang along with Courtney Love as she covered “Bette Davis Eyes.” We made a mental note never to make a lunch date with Jonathan Safran Foer. We almost got lost a few times in this transit map of the human body. We tried (and failed) to picture Kate Moss in a ballet duet with Mikhail Baryshnikov. We Lego’ed ourselves. We got excited at the prospect of a Run-DMC reunion at this summer’s third-annual Roots Picnic. And finally, we imagined having a virtual baby. And then we decided that it sounded like way too much responsibility.
There have been enough Valentine’s Day-themed mixes to overwhelm lately, so rest assured, this isn’t another one — though there are a few love songs to satisfy your fix. This week brings updates from singers who were off doing their own thing (Kate Nash, Yes Giantess) and fresh faces that deserve the light of day (Baby Monster, First Aid Kit). So without further ado, prepare to click ctrl + left click and “save as.” And as always, leave a comment to let us know what you think.
Read More »
When J.D. Salinger died last week at the age of 91, the Twitter- and the literatti aligned to mourn the reclusive writer. Charles McGrath wrote a touching obit in the New York Times; Lillian Ross waxed poetic in The New Yorker and Bret Easton Ellis, tweeted, “Yeah!! Thank God he’s finally dead. I’ve been waiting for this day for-fucking-ever. Party tonight!!!” Ah, the Twitterverse, where Chilon of Sparta’s maxim “Don’t speak ill of the dead” doesn’t apply, as long as you can do it in under 140 characters. We turned to the Twitterverse to see how other luminaries, literary and decidedly unliterary, marked Salinger’s passing*.
Read More »
Having already mastered the idioms of an ESL Ukrainian and a young boy with Asperger’s, Jonathan Safran Foer debuts his new voice in Eating Animals, a book-length screed devoted to the evils of meat eating. This voice may be Foer’s real one — his walk-around voice, or his walk-around-Park-Slope-pushing-a-Bugaboo-baby-stroller-in-which-his-new-son, Sasha, happily-munches-on-a-tofu-roll-up voice. It’s conversational to the point of artlessness, passionate to the point of hysteria. It’s scary, intelligent, and incredibly grating. Reading Eating Animals is like getting a colonoscopy: It’s important and salutary and everyone should do it. But if it were just a bit more pleasant, or done with a drop more lube, it would be a lot easier to make it a regular thing.
Read More »
Romanian-born, German writer Herta Mülller was tapped for the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature today. Persecuted for her depictions of life under Nicolae Ceauşescu in communist Romania, Mülller is a voice for the repressed citizens behind the iron curtain — a detail clearly not lost on the Swedish Academy given the 20th anniversary of communism’s collapse in Europe. Read More »
Novelist Martin Amis has no interest in the Zadie Smiths and Jonathan Safran Foers of the world, thank you very much. We wonder what he’ll think of Netherland when he finally gets around to reading it in 15 or 20 years. Proving himself to be quite the lit snob, he also reveals in this interview that he usually doesn’t read the work of students in his creative writing classes.
Our literary friend Sarah Weinman has written an interesting piece for the Guardian‘s Books Blog that examines what’s behind the recent “We hate Jonathan Safran Foer!” trend. The Cliffs Notes version: he’s young and rich; he’s married to another really talented writer; he lives in a dream apartment in a dreamy neighborhood. Any of those facts alone would be enough to incite our inner green-eyed monster, but put together in laundry list fashion, they make him sound like an unbearable force that must be stopped — even if we’re doing it subconsciously (See: Itmar Moses, Malcolm Goldwell, and Anya Ulinich).
But what we find even more fascinating than Foer fall out is the commenters’ reactions to Weinman’s fun post, and by extension, America’s obsession with celebrity and scandal. If there’s anything more entertaining than a literary culture war, it’s British people judging us for being entertained by a literary culture war. A few of the stodgiest comments — which we imagine were composed whilst sipping tea and nibbling Matlesers with Fawlty Towers – The complete series blaring in the background — after the jump.
Read More »
