Juliet Linderman, managing editor of The Greenpoint Gazette and featured reader at last month’s Vol. 1 Storytelling anniversary party, has lovingly and skillfully interviewed Paul Auster for The Rumpus. It is “lovingly” done in the sense that she clearly holds the novelist to eminent, celebratory respect, and “skillful” in that she just did it really fucking well. And Auster upholds it with his writerly charm, eclipsing the recent unpleasing flavor left atop my literary taste buds by Cormac McCarthy.
Lexicon, Lit., and Print Journalism as Art
- “Unfriend” is the Oxford English Dictionary’s 2009 Word of the Year.
- Bookforum’s latest omnivore topic: “Blog culture invades academia.” Yeah!
- “How Memoirs Took Over the Literary World”
- The Millions on Bolaño backlash (inevitable, but naturally unfounded).
- New York Mag tries to explain why your mother loves Twilight.
- The Museum of the City of New York has put together a nostalgic exhibit comprised of photographs from the now defunct LOOK Magazine.
Music, The Sound of Films
- Wes Anderson talks about a song from his latest film, Fantastic Mr. Fox.
- Pop Matters did a very nice thing by giving us all the videos from the upcoming Twilight film. Thanks buddies.
- Yo La Tengo are hittin’ the road.
Politics, etc.
- A roundup of what commentators are saying about the prospect of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being tried in a civilian court.
- “The number of Americans who lack dependable access to adequate food shot up last year to 49 million, the largest number since the government has been keeping track”
- Um, The Awl liked 2012. [ed. note: I felt for whatever reason like I needed to end on a positive, but not too positive, note.]