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David Sedaris

Books

David Sedaris, Mike Daisey, and the Problem With American Storytelling

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When your career is telling true stories — not writing fiction — and somebody accuses you of lying, that’s got to be tough. When somebody combs over your work and finds evidence that this is, in fact, the case, that you and your publisher are misrepresenting your partially fabricated work as truth, big problems arise. It may highlight how the sad state that art of storytelling has become in America, that we need to fabricate stories — but sometimes, amid our denunciation of liars and frauds, we forget that fabrication has always been part of that art. … Read More

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Film

‘Do I Sound Gay?’ a Documentary About “Gay Voice,” Is Asking for Funding on Kickstarter

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Like a regional speech pattern, the origins of “gay voice” can be any  mix of early socialization, imitation and group mentality; “gay… Read More

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Film

Flavorwire’s Guide to Movies You Need to Stream This Week

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Welcome to Flavorwire’s streaming movie guide, in which we help you sift through the scores of movies streaming on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and other services to find the best of the recently available, freshly relevant, or soon to expire. This week, there’s great stuff from Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Julianne Moore, James Franco, Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Mark Ruffalo, Jonah Hill, Paul Giamatti, Clive Owen, Annette Bening, Nick Offerman, Isaiah Washington, Jonathan Groff, Steven Soderbergh, Olivier Assayas, David Sedaris, and more. Check them out after the jump, and follow the title links to watch them right now. … Read More

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Film

Flavorwire’s Guide to Indie Flicks to See in September

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As we’ve discussed, the joyful fall movie season is upon us, and it’s time for Hollywood to spend four months making like they’re not a factory for endless remakes and comic book sequels. But don’t let them break their arms patting themselves on the back; every month the independent distributors give us a steady stream of smart movies for adults, and they’re not backing off just because the big boys are joining in. Here’s a few indie flicks worth checking out this month. … Read More

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Pop Culture

Staff Picks: Flavorwire’s Favorite Cultural Things This Week

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Need a great book to read, album to listen to, or TV show to get hooked on? The Flavorwire team is here to help: in this weekly feature, our editorial staffers each recommend the cultural object or experience they’ve enjoyed the most in the past seven days. Click through for our picks, and tell us what you’ve been loving in the comments. … Read More

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radio

The 15 Best ‘This American Life’ Episodes (So Far)

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It was nearly 20 years ago that Ira Glass, a Chicago public radio host, launched a unique radio show with a magazine format, in which various stories (or “acts”) with an interconnected theme were provided by reporters, storytellers, commentators, and the like. Originally titled Your Radio Playhouse, Glass changed the title shortly before the show was picked up for nationwide syndication to This American Life. And this Sunday, This American Life airs its 500th episode. In honor of the occasion, Flavorwire has (with great difficulty and discussion) selected the show’s 15 best episodes to date. (Maybe. They’ll probably be 15 completely different ones tomorrow.) … Read More

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Art

Tina Fey, David Foster Wallace, and Other Classic Portraits for The Believer by Charles Burns

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Our country’s leading literary authorities are getting older. Are we at peace with that? Maybe it’s too early, but there’s a general agreement that as Lewis Lapham, founding editor of Lapham’s Quarterly, and Robert Silvers, founding editor of The New York Review of Books, grow older, the torch is being passed to younger editors, like the co-editors of n+1 and Dave Eggers and The Believer. The same might be said of their illustrators, specifically, that Charles Burns’s portraits for The Believer may some day be placed on equal standing with the dearly admired illustrations by David Levine for The New York Review. Some of our favorites, after the jump, are now on display at the Adam Baumgold Gallery in New York, alongside the Before & After drawings from Burns’s graphic novel Black Hole. … Read More

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Books

Famous Authors’ Funniest Inscriptions in Their Books

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What’s better than a signed copy of your favorite book? Why, an inscribed copy of your favorite book, of course, preferably straight from the hand of your favorite author. While some authors tend to sign books with a simple “my best” or “thanks for reading,” others push the envelope a little more, and — especially with an author notorious for his or her humor — a signature seeker may be blessed with a quip, a bizarre turn of phrase, or even (the holy grail) a little doodle. After the jump, Flavorwire has tracked down a selection of famous authors’ amusing missives, drawings, and insults (produced upon request) as written in the first pages of their books. Check them out after the jump, and feel free to add your own in the comments.

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