Ah, If Only…
“Sort of like Amazon.com, but with pork”
In defense of the great taco truck - Los Angeles Times
Winking Chefs = Vero Ristorante Italiano
I’m curious why these Italian chefs’ default expression is a wink. Are they letting you in on a secret? If so, can plaster chefs be trusted with such confidential matters? Or is there deception at work, i.e. if I have to tell you it’s a “True Italian Restaurant” is it really a true Italian restaurant?
Andrew Bird in the N.Y. Times Measure for Measure Blog
The only thing that separates a mess of seemingly disparate observations and a song is a moment of excessive confidence. As time goes on words and ideas begin to catch and gather around the original suspiciously arbitrary seeds of inspiration. There are times when I must admit that all the verse has in common with the chorus is that they both came out of my imagination, but isn’t that enough?
Measure for Measure - Opinion - New York Times Blog
Interview with Lydia Millet
My recent interview with Lydia Millet is in the January Boldtype, and has been featured in Flavorpill as well. Good thing, because Millet’s new book, How the Dead Dream, is superb, squaring its shoulders against “big issues” with pathos, humor, and insight.Here’s Millet on the impetus to write the book:
So much of what’s foretold now by scientists, in terms of, say, extinction and climate change, comes at us like a wall of despair. We stand there facing the wall with nothing to do but throw up our hands. I wanted the trajectory of this character’s story, T.’s story, to evoke a less despairing response that has to do with the richness and excitement of animal life—the wild, imaginative heritage that animals have given to culture and art and religion; the recognition that the future of human civilization is deeply entwined with the future of species that are swiftly vanishing.
The Price of a Buch
Discounted books in Switzerland threaten Germany’s hallowed book culture, which has long maintained strict price controls. Here’s Elizabeth Ruge, head of the Berlin Verlag publishing house, taking the long view on building a back catalogue:
‘Three-quarters of our list will never make money, but it’s important to publish those books because we believe in them and because they create an atmosphere of quality,’ she said. ‘People then trust us when we say a book is good.’
The Assistant
Though I haven’t been writing on the blog, I have been writing. Here’s another review for Boldtype, this time of Swiss writer Robert Walser’s The Assistant.
How green was my Burning Man? > 09.06.07
On the way home from Labor Day weekend, I noticed a massive wall of dust out my window. My realization it was the Black Rock City commute coincided to the further realization that 40,000+ people in the desert can’t be a good idea.
As usual, my former editor D. Brian Burghardt beat me to the scoop. In his words:
If Burning Man has a carbon footprint, it resembles nothing so much as the one belonging to the elusive Sasquatch. In other words, it’s giant.
