Morning Bites: When Updike went homophobic, Jami Attenberg, Gessen at #OccupyWallStreet, and more

At Slate, David Haglund takes a look back at a homophobic 1999 book review written by John Updike.  He wasn’t keen on gay people, and he’d already been labeled a misogynist.  Now we’re convinced the only people John Updike liked were Ted Williams and Jewish writers. One of our favorite writers, Jami Attenberg, spends some time seeing if people pick up free copies of her book at a coffee shop. Keith Gessen went to Occupy Wall Street.  We heard a […]

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Morning Bites: BOMB Fiction Contest, Tina Brown Picks, Ira Glass Soda Recipe, Debbie Downer Writes a Book and More

Rachel Dratch is writing a book.  We are 110% behind this. BOMB Magazine has announced their 5th fiction contest, and Rivka Galchen is the judge. Tina Brown gives her “must reads” to NPR. Ira Glass gives us the secret recipe to Coca Cola Steve Martin is going to put out a second bluegrass album, and play five New York shows.    

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Ira Glass Gets Wrong

“Or: How to Make a career in other people screwing up” Why is there such a big payoff for the listener in stories about wrongness? What makes it so pleasurable? Well, if the story works, you become the character, right? You agree with their early point of view, and then when it gets shattered, you are shattered with it. So in the storytelling, you want to manipulate the evidence and the feelings so that the audience is right there agreeing […]

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All Tonight’s Parties

There are some nights were you look at the schedule of things going on and think to yourself “oh yeh, this is why I live in New York”, and tonight is definitely one of those nights. 1.  The Rumpus turns a years old, asks HTMLGiant to help them celebrate.  Tao Lin, Rivka Galchen, Justin Taylor, Deb Olin Unferth, and Stephen Elliott at Broadway East, where Chinatown meets the Lower East Side. 171 East Broadway. 2. Jami Attenberg reads from her […]

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Bites: Brittney vs. MJ, Ira Glass deals poker, Bjork spins, RIP Vibe I never read you,

SMITH Mag’s six-word obituaries for Michael Jackson vs. Vultures Britney Spears – haiku contest. I wasn’t creative enough to do either. Is it your dream to play some poker with Ira Glass, David Cross, and Michael Ian Black? Well, here is your chance, and it goes to benefit 826NYC. DJ Bjork Malcolm Gladwell reviews Free by Chris Anderson for the New Yorker If I’m gonna read one sports book this summer, it will probably be be Satchel: The Life and […]

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Bites: Taschen, Dave Eggers is busy, Egon Spangler, Antony)

Got a thousand bucks to blow? Taschen is putting out their most expensive book in five years, and it’s none other than Norman Mailer’s first posthumous work Norman Mailer, MoonFire: The Epic Journey of Apollo 11. If you want a more creative way to blow a grand, I have this really interesting business project called Vol. 1 Brooklyn that could use some funds. Paper Cuts asks if “Dave Eggers is the busiest man in literature?” We would like to answer […]

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