Jonathan Lethem Answers your Questions

Q: You published your first novel, “Gun, with Occasional Music,” in 1994, a year after the Web browser Mosaic was publicly released, transforming the way people traversed the Internet and contributing to its rapid expansion. Can you remember when you first went online? Do you think you’d be the same writer if you’d grown up with the Internet?

A: Very few people anymore even recall that I wrote that novel, as a strong young man in his twenties, on horseback. The process is almost unimaginable—I doubt I could even hoist those gigantic splintery quill pens into my arms these days, let alone repeatedly douse their nibs with elk’s blood and charge a stand of birch trees. . . .

Excerpt from the New Yorker

Todd Glass is great.

I can’t find a good pair of summer shoes that look nice without socks but are also comfortable. And I think: If I can’t find a nice pair of shoes, what are my chances of overcoming life’s larger struggles? Pretty slim. Pretty slim.

King + Hardcase

New novel in the works: Joyland.

What I'm reading. Via Zia.

Moonrise Kingdom

Want Bill Murray to take you on a tour of the set of Moonrise Kingdom? Sure you do.
My favorite part is when Bill is introducing the actors and what characters they're playing and says, "Bruce Willis playing a policeman—typecast, I guess."

Alcohol is an emergency exit. Sometimes it lets you out on the sidewalk, but sometimes it leads you into a dark, grimy alley with rats and starving dogs. And it’s only after the exit clicks shut behind you that you notice the smiles of the dogs saying, "welcome, welcome."

Unaltered satellite image of geometric fields, taken from Google Earth, via The Atlantic.

“I want to know if my hair is just like yours,” he told Mr. Obama, so quietly that the president asked him to speak again.

Jacob did, and Mr. Obama replied, “Why don’t you touch it and see for yourself?” He lowered his head, level with Jacob, who hesitated.

“Touch it, dude!” Mr. Obama said.

– – –
Photo by Pete Souza, text from an article by Jackie Calmes in the New York Times.

Alien vs. Predator

by Michael Robbins

Praise this world, Rilke says, the jerk.

We’d stay up all night. Every angel’s
berserk. Hell, if you slit monkeys
for a living, you’d pray to me, too.
I’m not so forgiving. I’m rubber, you’re glue.

That elk is such a dick. He’s a space tree
making a ski and a little foam chiropractor.
I set the controls, I pioneer
the seeding of the ionosphere.
I translate the Bible into velociraptor.

In front of Best Buy, the Tibetans are released,
but where’s the whale on stilts that we were promised?
I fight the comets, lick the moon,
pave its lonely streets.
The sandhill cranes make brains look easy.

I go by many names: Buju Banton,
Camel Light, the New York Times.
Point being, rickshaws in Scranton.
I have few legs. I sleep on meat.
I’d eat your bra—point being—in a heartbeat.

– – –

via the New Yorker

Check out Michael's collection of poetry, Alien vs. Predator

via I Wish my Name was Clemetine.

This song is the perfect soundtrack to the Bill Murray carefree bowtie knot photo one post previous. When I experienced them in conjunction at 4am I sobbed uncontrollably. That's probably normal.