April 2012
38 posts
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“That’s the way it is, that’s the way it goes, that was the way it...”
– Jean Rhys, Good Morning Midnight
perfect book.
books that take place in similar rooms:
Three Bedrooms in Manhattan by Georges Simenon
Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick
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Instant Rewards
Doing dishes and too lazy/rubbergloved to switch radio stations, even though the Brian Lehrer interviewee is a right-wing creep. But then something shifts and instead of resigning myself to feeling unnecessary recreational hatred I unglove and turn the dial. The next station over is playing a great song I’ve never heard before.
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Redesign
Two meatspace occurrences that generate some of the same brain feelings as an online revamping:
1. Visiting a business or institution that used to be housed in a different location in its new location for the first time. The old things are there but in a new arrangement. You keep looking for things in the wrong place.
2. Visiting a business or institution — typically, a restaurant —...
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“Well the truth is – is this really bad to say?—this is my autobiography. But...”
– Emily Books: “All of the Money, None of the Vomit:” A Conversation about Making Scenes
it is amazing to think there was stuff that was “way worse” than what’s in Making Scenes
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“Block paints Los Angeles in late-eighties’ Rococo: Patrick Nagel doing the...”
– Bennett on what it’s like to read Weetzie Bat as a teenager, and again as an adult
:’)
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The Not-Nice Novel
emilybooks:
Helen DeWitt’s books aren’t apologetic, cute or kind. In an Extremely Sentimental and Curiously Twee literary marketplace, we need her work more than ever, argues Rich Beck
In the last fifteen years, the Precocious Child has become one of the American novel’s favorite protagonists. Whimsical, ingenious, and verbose, the Precocious Child knows simultaneously more and less than his...
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“There’s an episode in Season 4 of Mad Men where Dr. Miller talks to Draper about...”
– Emily Books: “A Glory Hole Would Have Ruined EVERYTHING.” An Interview with Helen DeWitt
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“The DOJ lawsuit: Disrupts the current system and forces publishers who have...”
– The Bee’s Knees: Why the price of your e-book matters
reblogging for myself + everyone else who has been confused about what side to take. Answer, kinda: the side of books.
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“Ultraviolet (Paco Rabanne)
The bathrooms in hell smell like this....”
– In preparation for a perfume shopping trip planned for tomorrow I am rereading a little bit of my favorite book. I LOVE YOU TANIA!!!
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On handling congratulations in a graceful way
me: someone i follow on twitter got a guggenheim and is thanking batches of people by
being like "thank you!! @soandso @soandso"
in multiple tweets
Bennett: oh god
but do you ever think like
WHAT WOULD I DO IF I GOT A GUGGENHEIM
HOW WOULD I HANDLE THE TWITTER CONGRATULATIONS IN A GRACEFUL WAY?
me: i think, "what WILL I do" because I believe in the secret
that's probably the important part to focus on
not, like, writing books/applying for grants
Bennett: well what would you do!
i would just be like thank you everyone for the congratulations, now i'm going off
the internet for a week to avoid becoming what i hated!
me: I would do the same thing I do now when good things happen to me
keep my fucking mouth shut about it until years later when I have spent all the cash and
can complain about my idiocy!
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“I read a survey that says college-educated women receive oral sex twice as often...”
– Making Scenes (via emilybooks)
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The Best Time A Dude Said Something Appalling Yet...
“Willa Paskin: There’s also a scene in one of the episodes where a guy says to one of the characters, “The first time I fuck you I might scare you a little, because I’m a man, and I know how to do things,” and it’s supposed to be a huge turn-on.
Lena Dunham: Somebody actually said that line to me, only afterward he was like, “That’s the thing my friend who works at Vice magazine taught...
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“When women write in the first person their work is often called “confessional.”...”
– In case you were confused about what kind of books I like
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“Her name is Rachel, and she’s Jewish, which means she’s the first date in years...”
– Emily Books: Trading Futures
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“We see Fatal Attraction, and I cry at the end when the man goes back to his...”
– Emily Books: Trading Futures
an excerpt from our April pick, Making Scenes by Adrienne Eisen, is up now.
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“Given the industry’s fears about Amazon’s increasing monopoly on talent and...”
– Ruth wrote a great op-ed about how publishers are sabotaging themselves by requiring booksellers to apply digital rights management to the books they sell. You might think you don’t care about this issue, but if you like books, writing or reading, you care about this issue.
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“The reason why I wrote about that one aspect of my life so often was not to brag...”
– Mrs. Morrissey: The Benefits of Being Shameless
It used to be that the only story women were allowed to tell, that it seemed like the world wanted to hear, was “I was bad and then I learned my lesson and became good.” Join me in heralding the end of that era. I want to hear women tell...
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WTF-ness
This, from Kurt Ralske, is my favorite assignment from Draw It With Your Eyes Closed: The Art of the Art Assignment:
“I was frustrated with a class that seemed to be making work that was just too easy. Too many conceptual one-liners, too many lightweight “political statements” devoid of any ambiguity, too much autopilot minimalism. No risk, no complexity, no real personal...
“I try to curb these feelings by reassuring myself with a rotating assortment of...”
– on jealousy
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