New York Review of Books: “That the work of H.P. Lovecraft has been selected for the Library of America would have surprised Edmund Wilson, whose idea the Library was. In a 1945 review he dismissed Lovecraft’s stories as ‘hackwork,’ with a sneer at the magazines for which they were written, Weird Talesand Amazing Stories, ‘where…they ought to have been left.'” (via Maud)
Year / 2006
Let’s Not Discount the Developments and Restorative Potential of Starbucks Hookups
Independent: “While the French writer Boris Vian’s assertion – ‘if there had not been any cafés, there would have been no Jean-Paul Sartre’ – somewhat overestimates the powers of caffeine, the coffee house has witnessed and fuelled many of the intellectual, cultural and political developments in European society.”
Voice Expands Its Cultural Irrelevance, One Layoff at a Time
Ed Park, formerly of the Village Voice, reports terrible news. The Voice has canned book and film critic Dennis Lim. Apparently, meaningful arts criticism isn’t part of the new Voice. How long will it be before Beyonce profiles are the norm there?
The Newspaper Action is Going Online
Wired: “The average number of monthly visitors to U.S. newspaper websites rose by nearly a third in the first half of 2006, a study released on Wednesday said, though print readership at some larger papers fell….Print readership fell, according to a comparison of figures from the two periods conducted by Reuters.”
Pynchon Galleys Personalized
John Freeman observes that the galleys of Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day are now being circulated, with the recipient’s name on the galley.
I just sent the following email to Paul Slovak:
Paul:
Seeing as how you folks are personalizing the galleys, which, aside from the understandable reasons, is quite nice and saves some of us from writing our names in it, I was wondering if it was possible to obtain a galley of AGAINST THE DAY. If you need a specific name to use, “Bat Segundo” will do.
Thanks and all best,
Ed
Should Viking come through with this personalization request, I will post a photograph.
If “Bat Segundo” is unacceptable, I will happily accept anything under the following names:
Mark Foley’s Second-String Bitch
Carmen “He Packs the Banana” Miranda
“Easy Ed” Champion
Arthur “Two Sheds” Jackson
[UPDATE: Megan observes in the thread to Freeman’s post that booksellers have been told that there will be no galleys. Was Penguin lying or did they decide upon the galleys at the last minute?]
[UPDATE 2: I have sent an email to Tracy Locke asking for clarification on the bookseller galley front (as well as a galley). Locke reports that galleys were planned all along. Alas, no “Bat Segundo” or “Edward Champion” galley is in the cards.]