Category Archives: Politics

New York‘s Vulture blog has posted a recap of memorable lines from Toronto Film Festival entries. One in particular stood out: “You demonic concubine.â€� —The teenage reincarnation of Trotsky (Jay Baruchel), addressing the head of the school board in The Trotsky; screenplay by writer-director Jacob Tierney Right about now might be the time to mention … Continue reading

Since its founding in 2006, the Michigan-based press Dzanc Books has released a number of worthwhile reads, including Roy Kesey’s All Over and Kyle Minor’s In the Devil’s Territory. In the years since then, they’ve also acted as distributor for a number of other presses and journals (including Monkeybicycle and OV Books) and, more recently, … Continue reading

Matt Bell’s recent chapbooks How the Broken Lead the Blind and The Collectors occupy a surreal corner of American fiction, ranging from historical meditations to unsettling invocations of myths, folktales, and horror. My introduction to his work came via the short story “Hold On To Your Vacuum,” which appeared in the sixth issue of Keyhole. … Continue reading

Earlier this week, the Washington Monthly ran a Charles Homans piece on the brief life of Culture11, a site that began its existence as a right-of-center answer to Slate and morphed into something altogether different. (Ta-Nehisi Coates has a good take on why this matters, regardless of where you fall, politically speaking.) The piece as … Continue reading

Saw Idiocracy last week. I find myself thinking it would make a fine double bill with WALL-E: each depicts a future in which aspects of modern culture have spun out of control, leading to mammoth piles of garbage, an unholy fusion of big business with government, and an agriculturally barren landscape. One’s a cult classic, … Continue reading

Over at TNR: Javier Marías on politicians seeming fictional. And isn’t the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, with his vociferous curses against the United States, the small, fat, childish king who makes appearances in the Tintin and Capitan Trueno adventures? (It’s easy to imagine Chavez dressed in a pointed crown and christening robe and baring … Continue reading

From 52 to 48 With Love is, I have to say, pretty damn sweet. More information here. [via Waxy]

I’ve been meaning to post something here about the post-election arrests, which included a friend of mine, in northern Brooklyn since yesterday, but haven’t really been sure of what to say. Gothamist’s coverage has been solid, and their update on it today is well worth a read. (Also worth reading on the subject: New York … Continue reading

I’m with Alex on this one.

I’ve voted in four Presidential elections now. The first of those — 1996 — occurred when I was in college, and I cast my vote via absentee ballot. I’ve voted in the three since then in the same polling place in Greenpoint, which is where I arrived today at a little before 8 am. Normally, … Continue reading

Plastered around various regions of New York (generally frequented by folks in their twenties and thirties) this week have been posters featuring a stylized illustration of a demonic-looking Sarah Palin. The posters are certainly striking, and they’ve triggered some debate from various corners of the political world. That said, once I looked closer and noticed … Continue reading

For what it’s worth, I’ve gone and signed up on Indiebound, using the artfully cryptic name tobiascarroll. For more on just what that is, I’d recommend The Written Nerd on the subject. *** I’ve been meaning to post a lengthy response to this Jennifer Nix piece on print-on-demand and progressive publishing for a while now. … Continue reading

One: In which the Paper Thin Walls editorial staff records a Deerhoof song. The publicist responses are somewhat amazing. Two: In which Spencer Ackerman discusses Rancid, and analyzes why bands don’t typically cover songs from their members’ previous bands. (I’d like to hold up Lucero as a counter-example of this, as I saw them do … Continue reading

Okay, I need to ask: by the logic of this campaign ad, does liking Honest Tea make me a celebrity? If so, awesome. Also, I don’t know if a company that’s 40% owned by Coca-Cola can really be called “hard-to-find”. Just sayin’, guys.

Lately, I’ve been delving more and more into the TPMCafe Book Club — I’m pleased to see that they’re veering more and more into both books on politics from across the ideological spectrum, but also throwing in the occasional novel (specifically, Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland). I have, though, noticed some hostility from the comments section when … Continue reading

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