Bookworms are an interesting sort. Some compulsively hoard literary nuggets until their shelves sag and creak, yet never bother to actually read their collection. Others can barely tear themselves away from the freshly-vacuumed bookstore corner in which they devour the newest Malcolm Gladwell for fear that the trip home will forever interrupt their cozy date. There are bookworms with Kindles, and bookworms juggling the four paperbacks they’re reading at once. There are bookworms who get turned on by first editions, and bookworms keen on newer, abstract renditions. There are bookworms who follow the Tao of Oprah, and others who only listen to Deepak Chopra.
But perhaps the most intriguing bookworm of all is the bibliokleptomaniac, or what we like to call the kleptobrainiac. These people are book thieves, the nerdiest outlaws this side of Hogwarts. Fascinated? Appalled? Exposed? Find out what the most shoplifted books of modern times are after the jump.
Talking Heads alum David Byrne and dance beat guru Fatboy Slim are finally releasing Here Lies Love, their disco-influenced concept album based on the life of ex-Philippine first lady/shoe-hoarding diva Imelda Marcos and her life-long servant, Estrella Cumpas. If your first reaction is to rub your eyeballs and re-read that last sentence, we felt the same way.
Though, after some thought, we realized that this is just what we’ve come to expect from the awesomely eccentric Byrne. The new-wave hero played a rough draft of the project in a New York City showcase at Carnegie Hall in 2007, receiving decent reviews (it was a rough draft, after all). The original goal was to stage the songs as a musical, and while there have been a couple of theatrical performances with a few different ladies at the helm, the official album release features vocals by 23 artists.
The lineup has been announced for Lilith Fair 2010 and it ain’t half bad. As you may or may not remember, Sarah McLachlan and her tribe of she-women took the festival circuit by storm during the summers of 1997 to 1999. Back when bare midriffs and dancing computer babies were everywhere you looked, guitar-strumming ladies serenaded their fans near and far. It was good ol’ earthy, crunchy girl-power that featured artists such as Sheryl Crow, Jewel, Fiona Apple, Erykah Badu, Missy Elliott and the Dixie Chicks. The event made music history, empowering women who were trying to succeed in a male-dominated industry.
Despite being received with critical acclaim, Lilith Fair did have its detractors. Some called it too touchy feely, too white, too tame. Now, ten years after McLachlan wrapped the tour’s original three-year stint, the ladies of Lilith are back, with a 2010 tour in the works. While there is still a healthy dose of peasant skirts in the mix, it seems that the organizers have diversified their tastes. Check out the line-up (so far), along with videos for the ten acts we’re most excited about, after the jump.
September 11, 2001: planes were crashing, hearts were breaking, and Walter Kirn’s most recent novel, Up in the Air, was plummeting in sales. It could have had something to do with the fact that the cover featured men in suits whizzing around and plummeting to the ground like rogue jets. (One of them was even on fire.) Nevertheless, the story of Ryan Bingham, a frequent-flyer-mile-hoarding management consultant who specializes in firing corporate workers seemed doomed for anonymity. Then, in 2005, Thank You For Smoking director Jason Reitman pulled through, locking down George Clooney as leading man in the book’s film adaptation.
In March of 2009, Little, Brown and Companyannounced plans to publish an unfinished novel titled The Pale King, which David Foster Wallace worked onsporadically for at least a decade before his death. The novel is based on main character Lane Dean careening into transcendence simply by living a life of utter boredom. In a new excerpt just published by The New Yorker, we catch a glimpse into the troubled childhood of Pale King’s floundering leading man. As a reader, the selection is both comforting and frustrating to devour, much like Lane’s encounters with the voices in his head.
“(…The experience of the voices was analogous to the feeling of turning a pillow over to the cool side.) Sometimes the experience of the voices was ecstatic, sometimes so much so that it was almost too intense for me—as when you first bite into an apple or a confection that tastes so delicious and causes such a flood of oral juices that there is a moment of intense pain in your mouth and glands.”
Basically, it’s so good it hurts. More on DFW, the bookworm’s Cobain, after the jump.
Arrested Development fans will rejoice at the first glimpse of The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, a show written exclusively for Channel 4 UK by comedian David Cross. The show, which aired its pilot for British eyes only on November 27th, stars AD alums Will Arnett and Cross as well as wild thing Spike Jonze. From what we gather, the show is based on Todd Margaret (Cross), a class-A wiener who, by yelling obscenities about banana stands in Kazakhstan, fumbles his way from measly temp at a U.S. office to class-A wiener with a company credit card across the pond. All he has to do is hawk several thousand Thunder Muscle Energy Drinks before his psychotic, potty-mouthed boss (Arnett) shows up to collect in a week’s time.
The brilliant show also features Amber Tamblyn, Cross’ real-life girlfriend, as his girlfriend who he dumps with no hesitation before going international. The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margarethasn’t been picked up for a full season quite yet (Come ON!) but, once it does, let’s make sure that we import this gem — stat. Are you listening, American TV execs?! Check out a hilarious clip after the jump.
Remember the kid’s book Goodnight Moon? So many of us have fond memories of being lulled to sleep by this comforting classic.
“In the great green room
there was a telephone
and a red balloon
and a picture of —
the cow jumping over the Moon” - Goodnight Moon
Well, brace yourself, because comedians Bruce Worden and Clare Cross have parodied the old favorite and the result is warped. Goodnight Keith Moon — not to be confused with the fantastic biography from Moon’s chaffeur, Full Moon — gives us new-found gems to fall asleep to (and have awful, cold-sweat inducing nightmares about, of course). A sampling? “And two broken sticks/and a pile of sick.” Ah, poetry.
Waldo “Wally” Hunt, the man responsible for the modern renaissance of the pop-up book industry, passed away earlier this month at the age of 88. After selling his West Coast-based advertising agency in the early ’60s, Hunt ended up in New York City. Disillusioned with his company’s fate, Hunt looked for a new passion. He found it on Fifth Avenue when he caught a glimpse of a Czechoslovakian children’s pop-up book in a toy store window. From that moment on, Hunt essentially became the pop-up business.
He started Graphics International and, using his business savvy, produced a series of pop-up ads as part of a magazine campaign for Wrigley’s gum. After a few advertising-related ventures, Hunt sold Graphics International, moved back west, and opened Intervisual Books, a publishing firm that would dominate the market for decades, counting Disney among its clients. A dedicated collector of pop-up art, Hunt owned more than 4,000 antique and contemporary works.
Check out 10 of our favorite pop-up books after the jump.
A documentary begs to be made. There are months, maybe years of filming and editing, and what results is a visual incarnation of journalistic work that’s meant to inform and inspire. There’s no guarantee that a documentary will be well received beyond its niche audience, but when it is, there’s a certain magic that unites. Who knows what makes the stars align for often-underdog docs? It could be anything from storyline to controversy to something as simple as curiosity. There are always the big boys, a la Michael Moore or Ken Burns, but docs as a genre have that gritty DIY feel; it’s a guerilla medium for those with something to say.
After sifting through 89 films, The Academy has chosen 15 documentaries for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar short list. And this year, the aforementioned Michael Moore has to sit at the kiddie table.
While the 2009 Time magazine “Person of the Year” has been narrowed down to either Twitter or the economy (neither are people, you see), the New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year has been decided. The winner? “Unfriend.”
Unfriend: v. To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.
“It has both currency and potential longevity,” notes Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford’s US dictionary program. “In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year…Unfriend has real lex-appeal.”
