The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers makes a mostly successful case for the brothers’ classic films as a treasure trove of teachable moments about the human condition.
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The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers
Also posted in Side Shots Film Blog Tagged Barton Fink, Blood Simple, Burn After Reading, Coen Brothers, Dude Abides, No Country For Old Men, religion, The Big Lebowski Leave a comment
Monday’s Margins: Blue Sky Thinking, Literary Lies and Confessions
Have you ever claimed to read a book that you never actually finished? If so, it may have been one of these: The Books We Lie About. In “Confessions of a Literary Jingoist” Elizabeth Minkel writes: “You can seek out literature from just about anywhere — and now it’s easier than any previous point in [...]
Also posted in Book Rate Tagged Bat Segundo, Becky Bradway, Granta, Jonah Lehrer, Josh Ritter, Million Writers Award, Monday's Margins, vegetarian Leave a comment
Fassbinder “Wired” into Speculative Fiction
Beneath all science fiction lies a dilemma, one solved by the best storytellers: whether the speculative devices are more interesting than the characters created to experience them.
Also posted in Side Shots Film Blog Tagged Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Simulacron-3, Speculative Fiction, World on a Wire Leave a comment
Monday’s Margins: Casino Pulitzer Remix Kickstarter
Lit-link roundup: Pulitzer Do-Over, 50 Short Fictions at Wigleaf, Nick Antosca, Blake Butler, Alix Ohlin, TMN contest, Baffler fundraiser and more.
Also posted in Book Rate Tagged Alix Ohlin, Blake Butler, Dan Chaon, Monday's Margins, Nick Antosca, Pulitzer Prize, The Baffler Leave a comment
Monday’s Margins: Fast Machine Apocalypses and Stephen King’s Talking Head
“You could say these stories are meant to shock, but we all know that we live in an unshockable age.”
Also posted in Book Rate Tagged Jonathan Lethem, Matt Bell, Memes, Monday's Margins, Stephen King Leave a comment
What We’re Reading: April 2012
April’s staff reading list includes Hemingway, Ron Rash, Vanessa Veselka, Gary Lutz, James Franco and more.
Also posted in What We're Reading Leave a comment
Jeffrey Ford: Tribute to a Mentor
Even students who love writing aren’t thrilled about first-year composition. If not taught well, the classwork and assignments feel routine, like practice with no chance for game time.
Also posted in Editors' Blog Leave a comment
Book Review: Plague Town: An Ashley Parker Novel
Dana Fredsti, novelist and former swordswoman in charge of training on Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness, manages to squeeze some fresh juice out of an idea that Buffy did better on the small screen.
Also posted in Side Shots Film Blog Tagged Ashley Parker, Dana Fredsti, horror, Novels, Plague Town 1 Comment
Monday’s Margins: I’m Nobody, Who Are You? Are You — A Pulitzer Winner — Too?
Also posted in Book Rate Tagged Denis Johnson, Junot Díaz, Monday's Margins, Pulitzer Prize Leave a comment
Monday’s Margins: Immerse Yourself in Small Fates, Sweet Nothings, Ways to Swim
This week’s links include the luck of artistic success, DFW and Don DeLillo, Teju Cole’s Small Fates and more.
Also posted in Book Rate Tagged Catherine Campbell, Charles Baudelaire, Katy Lederer, Monday's Margins, Nate Pritts, PANK, Teju Cole, Tom Bissell Leave a comment
National Poetry Month 2012 Open Thread
Put your poetry here, poetic people.
Also posted in Editors' Blog, Poetry 13 Comments
The Freestyle Art of Suzuki – Branded to Kill (1967) and Toyko Drifter (1966)
Also posted in Side Shots Film Blog Leave a comment
Monday’s Margins: Word Riot Turns 10
A lazy Monday, so I just wanted to let you know that Jackie Corley and friends have now provided you with 10 years of Word Riot. We say: Here’s to 10 more years.
Also posted in Book Rate Tagged Indie Press, Jackie Corley, Monday's Margins, Word Riot Leave a comment
Monday’s Margins: WILD, B*tches in Bookshops, Baseball
“The beautiful thing about memoir is also the thing that makes it the most appalling: It’s actually you on the page.”
Also posted in Book Rate Tagged Baseball, Cheryl Strayed, Elizabeth Ellen, Jon Raymond, Monday's Margins Leave a comment
Identity Theory Staff Reading: March 2012
The Identity Theory staff reading list for March 2012 includes new stuff by Dan Chaon, Don Lee, Laird Hunt and more.
Also posted in What We're Reading Tagged Dan Chaon, Don Lee, Jonathan Franzen, Thomas Perry, William Faulkner 1 Comment
Monday’s Margins: Happy Birthday, Jack Kerouac
Today would have been Jack Kerouac’s 90th birthday.
Listening to The Conversation
Critics have missed some thematic points that are worth exploring to further illustrate the worthiness of Coppola’s still-undervalued character study.
Also posted in Side Shots Film Blog Leave a comment
Monday’s Margins: The Power of Introverts, Nabokov, Writers’ Doubt
A TED talk by Susan Cain on “The Power of Introverts”: Cain is the author of a book on this topic, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking * “When Vladimir Nabokov started teaching Russian literature at Wellesley College in 1944, he was frustrated by the lack of an adequate [...]
Author Strip Searches: Google Keyword Mashup Haiku
We get thousands of author-related queries on Google because of our author interviews. We also get more searches about dating a stripper than we can fathom due to an ancient article by Greg Bruns called “So you want to date a stripper?” So, I thought, why not make haiku combining these searches? Each line in [...]
Monday’s Margins: Sweet Talking The Obese Naked Leaf Peeper
What can a short story do that a novel can’t do? Find out…
Also posted in Book Rate Tagged Malaprop's, Nick Antosca, Stephanie Vaughn, The Rumpus, Tony Earley Leave a comment
“Working Titles” by Damien Jurado: Song of the Month, February 2012
Damien Jurado’s “Working Titles” is the Identity Theory song of the month for February 2012. The track comes from his new album, Maraqopa. Watch the Seattle, Washington-based singer’s live performance above or listen on Soundcloud.
Also posted in Music Blog Tagged Damien Jurado, Seattle Musicians, Songs of the Month Leave a comment
The Zen of Steve Jobs
The Zen of Steve Jobs is a brief, creative re-imagining of Jobs’ relationship with the non-traditional San Francisco Zen teacher Kobun Chino Otogawa.
January/February 2012 Reading List: Chronic City, Matterhorn, and The Obamas
Matthew Tiffany, Books Editor – Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain Hilarie Ashton, Assistant Editor – I’m finishing up Lethem’s Chronic City and Hugh Barker/Yuval Taylor’s Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music. The first is fabulous; the second is good (the latter’s Cobain [...]
Monday’s Margins: Sh*t Book Reviewers Say, Jo Nesbø, Jonathan Franzen
Sh*t Book Reviewers Say (Video by Ron Charles) Crime Pays: Jo Nesbø Talks about Killing Harry Hole and the Best Job in the World (Robert Birnbaum interview at The Millions) Jonathan Franzen, The Art of Fiction No. 207 (The Paris Review Interview, Winter 2010) Circus Love “I opened the door to the bite of marijuana [...]
Also posted in Book Rate Tagged Jo Nesbø, Jonathan Franzen, Meg Pokrass, Monday's Margins, Ron Charles Leave a comment
Port Huron Statement, Revisited
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) June 15, 1962 Introduction: Agenda for a Generation We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit. When we were kids the United States was the wealthiest and strongest country in the world; the only [...]
Also posted in Social Justice Blog Leave a comment
Further Thoughts on Howard Hawks’ Scarface (and In Praise of Robin Wood)
I have the privilege of teaching post-secondary film studies, which grants me the ability to repeatedly view works. I teach genre film, and my specialty in the crime genres has me returning to Howard Hawks’ Scarface, not the first of the 1930s gangster classics but the most realized and enjoyable. We’ve heard professors distinguish the [...]
Best Albums of 2011
In 2011 my listening didn’t have much to do with new music that was coming out. The only cds in my car were the works in progress of my friends which have not yet come out officially. My most played albums at home were Aphrodite’s Child and Serge Gainsbourg on a rickety record player. I [...]
December 2011 Reading List: Turtle Island, Michael Chabon, Percival Everett
Matt Borondy is reading two poetry books: Turtle Island by Gary Snyder and our music editor Anna-Lynne’s new one. Plus some techie e-books. And Gary Shteyngart. (That’s right, I spelled his name without looking.) And this new “graphic biography” called The Zen of Steve Jobs — if it gets here on time.Matthew Tiffany is reading [...]
Also posted in What We're Reading Tagged Gary Snyder, Michael Chabon, Percival Everett, Turtle Island 1 Comment
