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Poetry & Poets in Rags (Free subscription) | 11/18/2009
of [Dorothy] Parker's verse, it is not surprising to learn that her long life was not a happy one--indeed eponymously not much fun--replete with sad childhood, alcoholism, abortions, suicide attempts and betrayals by friends and lovers. Not everyone liked her and she may well have been her own worst enemy, but when Lillian Hellman is your best friend, who needs enemies? In any case, Parker seems to...
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The Liberal Curmudgeon (Free subscription) | 11/12/2009
Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan In The 1920s by Ann Douglas. 606 pp. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (paperback) While the 1960s are associated with the counterculture, Ann Douglas makes the case in “Terrible Honesty” for the cultural breakthroughs that took place during the 1920s. Leading the charge were prominent black and white artists–a “mongrel” group that shook off...
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Laudator Temporis Acti (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
J.R.R. Tolkien, O'Donnell Lecture on English and Welsh : Most English-speaking people will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful,' especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky , and far more beautiful than beautiful . Well, then, in Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent, and moving to the higher dimension, the words in which there is...
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<HTMLGIANT> (Free subscription) | 10/30/2009
AMBIDEXTROUS AUTHORS — Dorothy Parker, Toni Morrison, and Raymond Carver belong to a group of ambidextrous authors who have the facility to place both hands at the sides of their respective cheeks simultaneously. During photo shoots, they are keen on demonstrating this ability. Their adroit use of two hands at the keyboard have led to prolific and [...]
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Poetry & Poets in Rags (Free subscription) | 10/21/2009
Dear Poetry Aficionados, IBPC: Poetry & Poets in Rags The blog posts of the Poetry & Poets in Rags links for this week begin with five black and white photos in a row. The reason? It is the week of unearthing. Federico Garcia Lorca's body is about to be exhumed, if he's where they think he is, where a stone plinth is near a lone olive tree. In Australia, they are relooking at Breaker Morant's...
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Poetry & Poets in Rags (Free subscription) | 10/21/2009
of [Charles] MacArthur: "How like me, to put all my eggs into one bastard," there had been no solid evidence until now that she had ever written about their relationship. Previously published anonymously in an obscure magazine owned by a friend, Pollyanna Gets The Air can now be attributed to the socialite, said Stuart Silverstein, editor of a newly updated anthology of her poetry. It is...
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You Don't Say (Free subscription) | 10/16/2009
They tell you, and they are right, that it is not wholesome to write a bad review. That it is impossible to do so without sounding snotty. That you had better not even attempt it unless you can match the mastery of a Dorothy Parker (“ The House Beautiful is the play lousy”). That you would spend your time, and the reader’s, more profitably by praising good work. And yet, sometimes...
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Mike's Writing Workshop & Newsletter (Free subscription) | 10/04/2009
This interview was first posted on January 25, 2009. Elizabeth Spiers, Writer/Editor/Blogger, Entrepreneur Elizabeth Spiers, writer, editor, blogger, was a publishing phenomenon before the age of 30, already on the cutting edge of online journalism. She was the founding editor of the infamous New York-centric media gossip site, Gawker.com (Dec. 2002-Sept. 2003); founder and publisher of Dead Horse...
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Bernadette Geyer (Free subscription) | 10/02/2009
Is it inevitable that a poet should write about Penelope? Over the years, I have seen so many that I wonder if there's an anthology somewhere on the subject... I don't think I will ever write one about her. But I will write about gardens and insects. Flowers and fairy tales. More subjects that have probably been done to death by poets. The challenge is to "make it new", whatever subject you...
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Reason Magazine - Hit & Run (Free subscription) | 09/05/2009
This week's view from inside the gift horse's mouth comes from linguist Geoff Nunberg , who assesses the mixed results of Google Books. His focus is on metadata giving publication dates for particular editions. These dates are crucial for doing some pretty interesting research: Can we observe the way happiness replaced felicity in the seventeenth century, as Keith Thomas suggests? When did "the...
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Conversational Reading (Free subscription) | 09/04/2009
Google Book's data is highly unreliable, the Journal of Higher Education is claiming in this article. They make a convincing argument that Google Book's metadata is full of errors: To take Google's word for it, 1899 was a literary annus mirabilis, which saw the publication of Raymond Chandler's Killer in the Rain, The Portable Dorothy Parker, André Malraux's La Condition Humaine, Stephen King's...
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bookfutures (Free subscription) | 09/04/2009
"The proposed settlement between Google and US publishers must be resisted, argues Bill Thompson if:book associate Bill Thompson (pictured above at the if:book event at the Latitude Festival) has been speaking out about the begooglification of literature in his BBC column . He writes: "Google is in the middle of a massive project to scan and digitise every book it can get its hands on, whether...
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Chicano Poet (Free subscription) | 09/03/2009
Joyce Vandeveer by Michael Barnes of the Austin-American StatesmanThe picture prompted the initial enigma. A woman sporting short, dark hair. A cigarette. Shadowed eyes, half brooding, half smiling. Like her fastidiously painted lips.The image could have been lifted from a 1950s book-jacket portrait. A Carson McCullers. Or a Dorothy Parker. Or perhaps a Jane Bowles.Who exactly was Joyce Vandeveer
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Media News (Free subscription) | 09/02/2009
"Whether the Google books settlement passes muster with the U.S. District Court and the Justice Department, Google's book search is clearly on track to becoming the world's largest digital library. No less important, it is also almost certain to be the last one. Google's five-year head start and its relationships with libraries and publishers give it an effective monopoly: No competitor will be...
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NewYorkology: A New York Travel Gui (Free subscription) | 08/26/2009
The Jazz Age reaches its finale this evening — or at least it’s the end of summer speakeasy nights at the Museum of the City of New York . The Moonlighters will play music of the 1920s and ‘30s. The museum has arranged for a few ringers on the dance floor — professional dancers in vintage clothes — as well as Charleston dance lesson at 6:10 p.m. Kevin Fitzpatrick, author...
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