1. The New Yorker’s Ben Greenman has come up with a list of a day’s worth of facts to get you through Wikipedia’s 24-hour blackout. [via McSweeney's]
2. In a move that rivals that woman who was upset that Drive wasn’t enough like a Fast and the Furious movie, some cinemagoers in the UK are demanding their money back because they didn’t realize that The Artist was a silent film. [via Telegraph]
3. The producers of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark are now suing the show’s former director, Julie Taymor, claiming that she developed “a dark, disjointed, and hallucinogenic musical involving suicide, sex, and death,” and refused to make the necessary changes when there were problems. [via BBC]
4. Pusha-T, Jay Electronica, and Frank Ocean are among the G.O.O.D. Music artists who are set to appear on Kanye West’s forthcoming compilation album, which is set for release this spring. [via NME]
5. LL Cool J is hosting this year’s Grammys which air February 12th on CBS at 8 pm. Didn’t realize that this particular awards show even had one? The last time it did was back in 2005, when Queen Latifah was at the helm. [via Vulture]
Bonus Buzz: The Internet’s Blackout Pages And SOPA Protests
Today at Flavorpill, we couldn’t believe how adorable elementary school-age Kanye was. Don’t you just want to pinch his cheeks? We got inside of Sarah Palin’s head thanks to New Yorker editor Ben Greenman and the pseudo science of phrenology. We saw proof that Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino is the savviest cat lady of all time. We liked Splitsider’s list of comedies that people need to stop quoting from forever immediately. We looked at teeny tiny versions of some of our favorite TV series. We were totally impressed by Hasegawa Yosuke’s money portrait origami — particularly his Abraham Lincoln. We got a kick out of this holiday-appropriate supercut of all of the Ned scenes from Groundhog Day. We reviewed the album covers of Britney Spears only to discover a common thread: they’re all poorly designed. We got excited about the trailer for Win Win, a new film from the director of The Station Agent that stars Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan. We cooed over photos of animals in the snow. And finally, we got our hands on the 2011 SXSW Film Festival lineup — or at least of most of it. Are you planning to head to Austin this year?
In his new book Celebrity Chekhov, Ben Greenman adapts twenty stories by Anton Chekhov in a satirical send-up of our celebrity-obsessed culture. But whereas the Russian writer featured low-salaried government clerks, choristers, and angsty noblemen in his menageries of human fallacy, Greenman’s hilariously spot-on high-brow/low-brow vision also stars Kim Kardashian, Simon Cowell, Bono, and Paris Hilton in a testament to the stories enduring themes of disillusionment and social breakdown. Test your literary (and tabloid) IQ by trying to match Chekhov’s characters with their closest celebrity counterparts.
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Ten days, ten questions that ask you to take a step back and look at what’s been going on in your world: that’s the simple premise behind 10Q, a Web project from novelist and New Yorker editor Ben Greenman, British writer Nicola Behrman, and Amelia Klein, the program director for Reboot, a non-profit organization for Jewish creatives. Now in its second year, the site provides a space for people to reflect on the past year, examine their values, and imagine where they’re going next. Starting today you can preview the ten questions that they’ll be asking on a jumbotron in Times Square. Flavorpill caught up with Greenman earlier this week to ask him some questions of our own. Read More »
Over the weekend our friend Ron Hogan gave us the head’s up that one of our favorite writers, Ben Greenman (who we interviewed about his last book, Correspondences, here), has an original theme song for his soon-to-be released book Please Step Back. Kind of makes those art-house trailers look like small change, huh? Read More »
The Guardian‘s STUART JEFFRIES wondered last Wednesday what ROBERT BROWNING’s emails to ELIZABETH BARRETT would be like today; if they were living at a time when we’re more likely to poke our friends on Facebook than write them a letter, let alone one that, to quote Browning, we would “press to [our] heart and bow [our] head upon.”
One can’t help but recognize the irony in Jeffries contemplating the topic on his blog.
We recalled this when we read New Yorker editor BEN GREENMAN’s newest book, CORRESPONDENCES. The “book” consists of seven short stories, six written in the form of a letter. The aesthetics are unique, with each story printed on thick paper in its own distinctive font and folded into neat squares; two stories per bundle, presented in a box. The seventh story, “What He’s Poised to Do,” is embossed on the cover of the case, and not only communicates a story to the reader, but begs his/her participation via postcard.
When FLAVORWIRE had the opportunity to correspond, via email, with the author, we asked him a few questions to uncover the story behind this singular endeavor. Our favorite bits of the interview after the jump.
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