A visualization of some odd writer rituals from Lapham’s Quarterly. Victor Hugo wrote naked in the bedroom, Emily Dickinson wrote poetry in the pantry, John Cheever wrote in his underwear in the basement. Lots of nude or semi-nude writing going on, I can see.

A pre-Catcher Salinger writes to Hemingway.

“He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.” This and more best metaphors ever, via.

In this week’s edition of Life’s Not Fair, Jersey Shore castmates JWOWW and Ronnie have landed a book deal.

How to become a literary star.

5 “wonderfully weird” book videos to add to the list.

What do David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest and Wikipedia have in common? Via.

James Franco edited by the New York Tyrant.

Robot Rilke, via.

Snarkmarket’s Robin Sloan writes a piece of flash fiction with near real-time editing help from Twitter.

The problem with fairy tales.

Aaaand because it’s hump day, here is a plastic bag with the voice of Werner Herzog: Read more »

A frightening instance of "reality television"

A little over a decade ago, I was sitting in my junior high homeroom – furiously trying to finish the algebra homework I had forgotten to do the night before.  As if my absolute ineptitude for mathematics wasn’t enough, I was very distracted by the cluster of kids in the corner talking about the mysterious letters they had received from a production company asking to use their homes as sets for a new HBO show called The Sopranos.

Like most suburban towns, the New Jersey suburb that I did most of my growing up in was (and arguably is) one of the most boring places to come of age.  None of us understood how a television show could be entertaining if we were to be their setting.  Later on we learned that The Sopranos was about Italian mobsters which was not a reality in our town at all.  Our mobsters were Russian… which of course reminded us all of the day our middle school’s backyard became a helicopter landing pad when authorities learned that the body of Russian Olympic boxer, Sergei Kobozev (missing for nearly a decade) was dug up when a couple tried to put a pool in their backyard.

When I really think about it, my boring little Jersey suburb did see quite a bit of excitement over the course of the thirteen years that I lived there.  However, whatever excitement existed is still diluted by a higher ratio of “reality” or days where nothing out of the ordinary occurred.  Successful narrative television such as The Sopranos know not to show you the days where Tony Soprano is just chilling with a copy of The Star-Ledger in his backyard and various other narrative dramas boil down the occurrences of thirteen years into a single season to keep things compelling.

Around the same time that The Sopranos had begun their narrative journey, I happened to be chilling in my backyard with a copy of The Star-Ledger and noticed that their TV listings had a new genre color code.  Now, among the likes of comedy, drama, news magazines, game shows and talk shows was what many of us had believed to be a passing trend: Reality TV.  Read more »

Now that the first season of MTV’s Jersey Shore is over, the cast members will have some free time on their hands. The following is a list of book recommendations for the guidos and guidettes to digest in between their gelling, juicing, and tanning.

Read more »