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This Week: More (Mostly Naked) Odd Writer Rituals, Best Bad Metaphors, How to Become a Literary Star

By JK Evanczuk on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - View Comments

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 »

Take Another Little Piece Of My Heart Now, Rilke

By Jennifer Blevins on Thursday, October 8, 2009 - View Comments

My loverEver fall in love with someone and then find out that they’re kind of an ass? Yeah…me too. The first Rilke that ever crossed my hands was Letters to a Young Poet, and I still remember the effect it had on me. I felt as if I had found my soul mate….if he had been in the room (and alive) I would have jumped him on the spot. There is a vibrant grace and poignant longing in every bit of Rilke I have read, and the first elegy of his Duino Elegies has the power to hit some g-spot deep in my heart and bring me to tears. So finding out that he was actually kind of a whiney, narcissistic brat was analogous to finding out as a kid that Santa Claus didn’t really exist.

According to Robert Vilain, the Rilke I’m having an affair with in my head is NOT in fact the same Rilke who inhabited this planet. Real Rilke was “vain, self-pitying, obsessive, narcissistic, snobbish, whining, arrogant, childish, demanding, lachrymose and neurotic, as well as being given to tantrums and panics.” However, apparently my g-spot is not the only one he has been able to hit; even though he was a bit of an ass, Rilke was also “magnetically attractive to a series of women.” 

So what does it mean when you fall in love with someone who isn’t a very nice person? And should you try to separate the artist from the art? And why doesn’t Rilke ever return my phone calls?! Read more »