Bill O’Reilly is obsessed with how long it takes a murder victim to die. In his novel – that’s right, his novel – we find out, for example, that “the soft tissue gave way quickly and the steel penetrated the correspondent’s brain stem. Ron Costello was clinically dead in four seconds.” Or, “Lance Worthington couldn’t feel the razor-sharp box-cutter blade slice through his throat…. it was exactly two seconds before he lost consciousness.” Some deaths come even quicker: “A slab of sizzling white hot metal fell directly on his head. Death for Shannon Michaels came one second later.”
The main character, Jon, whom the composer named after himself, struggles with an unsuccessful career composing musicals (or did that meta just blow your mind?)
The writer Gene Wolfe possesses many gifts; he bears an almost equal number of maddening, irritating flaws. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his 1984 experimental mystery novel Free Live Free
Ask the average American boy what he wants to do when he grows up, and you’re likely to get answers such as “I wanna be a firefigher,” “an astronaut,” or “the president.” Spanish boys prefer “bullfighter,” and Italians will likely say “F-1 driver.” Florent Masse, a precocious Frenchman extraordinaire at the tender age of five, confessed that he wanted to be Gerard Depardieu.
Many works of art have emerged in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks as part of the collective struggle to commemorate, understand, and situate them within the rapidly coalescing frieze of our shared memory. Thanks to the plethora of novels sprung up in the ashes of disaster, we are now privy to such worthwhile phenomena of universal human interest as the tone-poetic hi-jinks of the chattering classes in the months preceding the big event, as in Claire Messud’s respectable novel The Emperor’s Children, and the annoyingly precious musings of the insufferably earnest, as in Jonathan Safran Foer’s not-so-respectable novella Extremely Loud and Incredible Close.
I finally get a hold of Howie Payne as his band, The Stands, is en route to a gig in Cleveland. This is only the second time the Liverpool natives have played in America, but Payne is cautiously optimistic.
If you’re privy to certain circles, Deerhoof are called the greatest band in the world. If you’re not, you’ve probably never heard of them. My friend overheard a guy call them “Deershit” when they opened for Wilco. In one way … Read More
“At Princeton, sometimes it feels as though carbs are ubiquitous. Sometimes it’s difficult to bring to mind the last time we ingested a fruit or vegetable that wasn’t in the form of ice cream or dried into a chip. This is exactly what made the introduction of açaí bowls to campus so exhilarating.”
I love this show as much as FOX hates it, which is a lot. I mean, running the last four new episodes all at once, up against the opening ceremonies of the OLYMPICS?!
