The Riss diner was on 8th Avenue between 22nd and 23rd Streets in Manhattan. It’s no longer there. In its place is a Murray’s Bagels shop. Much less interesting. This photo illustrated the front cover of Philip Corner’s The Identical Lunch, in 1973. Click to enlarge I published the book, which Graham Macintosh designed and […]

Keith Seward, in a remarkable piece of detective work, susses out the mystery behind an enigmatic literary figure. I quote from his intro: In the summer of 1959, with Olympia Press about to publish the first edition of Naked Lunch in Paris, William Burroughs was raving about the work of another writer. Jack Kerouac, Allen […]

Obama’s speech, “laying out his plan to reduce the deficit,” seemed to make a lot of liberals happy, or happier than they thought they’d be. Rachel Maddow, for example, praised the speech “for defining Democratic values, defending social programs, and confronting Republicans.” The plan even had Paul Krugman in sort of a swoon: Substance: Much […]

The Guardian reports that top U.S. legal scholars are outraged by Bradley Manning’s treatment. They call it “torture” and, “in a stinging rebuke” to Barack Obama that is nothing if not personal, they question “whether his conduct as commander in chief meets fundamental standards of decency.” Glenn Greenwald’s column today tipped me to the report. […]

Lizzie Ratner, one of the editors of THE GOLDSTONE REPORT: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict, sends this response to the Goldstone bombshell, as I termed it: I think your read is by and large right: The judge’s retreat from the Goldstone Report’s findings was far more modest than his critics’ […]

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“The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man.” — Nelson Algren He would have been 102 today. Algren was the author of more than a dozen books. Born on March 28, 1909, in Detroit, he lived […]

And We’re Still Counting The Cost of the War in Iraq (JavaScript Error)

If it’s true that professional boxing now has 68 world title holders in 17 weight classes, as The Wall Street Journal recently reported, then it’s not surprising that AT THE FIGHTS: American Writers on Boxing, a new anthology from The Library of America, reads like an elegy for the fight game. More than five dozen […]

“Bradley Manning has been stripped naked every night and made to parade in front of his officers and guards in the nude” for the past nine days, according to The Guardian, which has just published Manning’s own description of his treatment. It is the first time Manning has spoken out about the details of his […]

Mike Lawrence sends word that he’s “off and running on BACH & more friends,” a companion film to his previous Bach & friends. “I have several players lined up, and I’ve contacted a bunch of big guns,” he says in an e-mail. He’s still waiting to hear whether the big guns will participate. That’s what […]

Ian MacFadyen’s astounding book-length essay about the avant garde artist-poet-novelist Brion Gysin, “A Trip from Here to There,” knocked me out. It had just been posted at RealityStudio, so I was raving about it — couldn’t help myself — to anyone within listening distance. Along came a savvy, multilingual writer I’m acquainted with, precisely the […]

How about Christopher Hitchens? OK, how about Willy Wyler? EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

The Guardian reports: The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to be extradited to Sweden [from the U.K.] to face allegations of rape and sexual assault. Assange will appeal, his legal team has confirmed. If they lose he will be sent to Sweden in 10 days. He will “be held in custody,” the report also said, […]

Here we go again, this time vs. the NYT Book Review. You decide. © 1969 by Norman O. Mustill These images are from Norman O. Mustill’s Twinpak, one of a series of Nova Broadcast pamphlets published in San Francisco in 1969. This image is Barbara deWilde‘s illustration for the cover of The New York Times […]

It’s hard to believe, but some people want to know how to become a copy editor. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Here’s the headline on the exclusive report in today’s Guardian: Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war. Which reminds me of this blogpost — HIT BY A CURVEBALL — published way back on July 11, 2004: David Johnston’s report on how the “Powers That Be” conned Americans into believing Iraq had weapons of […]