The first mention of birdwatching in Purity, the fifth novel from Jonathan Franzen, occurs less than five pages from the beginning, in a short aside about the title character’s mother. Then surprisingly, for nearly 500 pages, […]
Tag: Books
Leave Jonathan Franzen Alone
The first sentence of “Father Away,” Jonathan Franzen’s essay about spreading the ashes of David Foster Wallace off the coast of Masafuera, ingeniously ends with the word “lobsters.” Over the course of seven clauses, Franzen semantically ferries […]
2014 Top Ten Lists With Zero Explanations
Top 10 Movies of 2014 1. The Grand Budapest Hotel 2. Whiplash 3. The Lego Movie 4. Obvious Child 5. Snowpiercer 6. Boyhood 7. Noah 8. Birdman 9. Edge of Tomorrow 10. Under the Skin x Top 10 TV Shows of 2014 1. Transparent, Season One […]
Katniss Everdeen: Good Marxist?
The history of all heretofore existing Hunger Games is the history of class struggles. In the post-apocalyptic book and film series, an unfettered bourgeois ruling class known as The Capitol subjugates the larger proletariat population of […]
READ MY NOVEL NOW: Chill or Fraud? Chapter Two
For reasons previously iterated, I will be serializing my novel, Chill or Fraud?, in its entirety on this blog. You can read the latest version of the novel’s second chapter, “Gentrified Brooklyn,” by clicking the words below […]
Should Lena Dunham Have to Pay Her Art Slaves?
The question of proper monetary compensation for artists should have precisely nothing to do with Lena Dunham, whom is neither an artist nor a person raised by artists, but her momentary association has–albeit inadvertently–injected a semblance […]
READ MY NOVEL NOW: Chill or Fraud? Chapter One
For reasons previously iterated, I will be serializing my novel, Chill or Fraud?, in its entirety on this blog. You can read the latest version of the novel’s first chapter, “I,” by clicking the words below this […]
My Howard Zinn Highlight Reel
The incalculable importance of Howard Zinn’s The People’s History of the United States cannot be expressed in words, so this sentence ends here. Anyone who has read the book should understand, anyone who hasn’t should read it […]
Mining The New Yorker’s Fiction Archives
Every story that has appeared in The New Yorker since 2007 is currently available to be read online, free of charge, before the magazine’s site institutes a pay wall later this year. See for yourself by […]
baby pictures of famous dictators 