Wes Anderson, Ben Marcus and n+1
Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach will be in conversation tonight at NYPL, there's a Harper's Magazine reading on Wednesday with Ben Marcus and Rivka Galchen, and the Internet as Playground and Factory conference with n+1 magazine begins Thursday. Check these and other events at Notable New York at the Rumpus.
Also, keep your calendars open on November 17. The Rumpus is throwing a party at the Highline Ballroom--MORE THAN YOU EXPECTED--with readings by Starlee Kine, Jonathan Ames and Rick Moody, comedy by Todd Barry and Eugene Mirman, and musical guests Care Bears on Fire.
James Franco's Face and Benefit Party w Care Bears on Fire
At the Rumpus, my write-up on the New Yorker Festival has been linked to by a few places like PW Morning Report, Tao Lin's blog and Vol. 1 Brooklyn, which liked my title, "James Franco's Face."
Also, save the date, the Rumpus and Tin House are having a benefit party on November 17th 2009 that's going to be a blast.
MORE THAN YOU EXPECTED, A NIGHT AT THE HIGHLINE
Rick Moody, author of Right Livelihoods, Jonathan Ames, author of The Double Life Is Twice As Good, This American Life's Starlee Kine, David Rees, author of Get Your War On, comedians Todd Barry and Eugene Mirman, HBO Def Poetry Jam star Vanessa Hidary, the Six Word Memoirists and music by kid core phenomenon Care Bears On Fire
...And Tree-Swinging Sasquatches
I was happy to be able interview Tao Lin for The Rumpus, an interview that went up today. Tao Lin is very astute, thoughtful and incredibly specific with respect to topics such as how certain writers affected his work, why the issue of whether or not people think his work is "weighty" doesn't concern him anymore, and about the term 'Kmart realism," and everything it implies about the writers who are grouped under it and the act of grouping writers, in general. He also gives a convincing argument for why his work should not be considered nihilistic and talks a little about nostalgie de la boue.
For a solid primer on "Kmart realism," as per Tao, which charts the time-line of the rise and fall of the literary style alongside that of the rise and fall of the corporation, check out his blog post from 2005: kmart, kmart realism; the rise, struggle, decline of. A quote I like from the interview:
An unmediated experience of reality seems desirable to me sometimes. None of these reasons, in my view, have anything to do with “numbness,” “ennui,” “apathy,” “condemning my generation,” “saying [anything] about my generation,” “saying [anything] about society,” “saying [anything] about the state of the world,” or “saying [anything] about technology’s effect on people.”
"Yellow. Just bring in Yellow."
There is a crazy in-depth and very insightful and engaging interview of Clancy Martin up today on Gigantic Web by Lincoln Michel. Lincoln Michel goes head to head with Clancy Martin on Nietzsche, Nirvana and the color of despair.
Also, I'll be posting a weekly column on The Rumpus listing cultural events going on each week. This week, it's Rasskazy, Harmony and Me, and I WILL SMASH YOU.
Illustration by Gigantic House-Illustator Andrew Bulger
The Future of Fiction, Real Surreal and the Myth of Upward Mobility
I've got a piece up on The Rumpus on my day at the Brooklyn Book Festival, covering readings by Tao Lin and Ben Marcus, talks by Lewis Lapham and Heidi Julavits and silent sightings of Thurston Moore.
