Rumpus: So did reading and literature play a part in the formative years of The Minutemen?
Watt: Big time. D. Boon got me into history, I never really—well, my ma got some world book from some door-to-door guy, so I started with the A’s. It’s weird how they’re connected, there’s no, like you didn’t have hyperlinks. So I went and read that thing through, but that was the only non-fiction, really. Because I was born in ’57, space races were big, so science fiction was what I read. You know, Bradbury.
Brooklyn’ers did you know about this??
Brooklyn Bridge Park
Monday, July 9 - Monday, August 13, 2012
7pm-8pm
Weekly on MondayMonday, July 9th at 7pm – Freebird Bookstore:
Brian Francis Slattery, Lost Everything, accompanied by acoustic band
Monday, July 16th at 7pm – Greenlight Bookstore:
Amor Towles, Rules of Civility
Monday, July 23rd at 7pm – Powerhouse Arena:
Lizz Winstead, Lizz Free or Die
Monday, July 30 at 7pm – WORD:
Short Stories with Robin Black, Tania James, Rajesh Parameswaran, Jim Shepard, and Charles Yu
Monday, August 6 at 7pm – Community Book Store Park Slope:
Patti Smith
Monday, August 13th at 7pm – Bookcourt:
Martin Amis, Lionel Asbo: State of England
Well, this sounds fantastic.
Kraus is the type of soul that Henry David Thoreau would have enjoyed, a guy who is a savant in what the 19th century transcendentalist poet and philosopher referred to as the “art of walking.” But while Thoreau concerned himself with the natural surroundings of his native Massachusetts, Lewis-Kraus focuses on a mix of family-inflicted mental maladies, existential boredom, and good old-fashioned shpilkes. (via Roads to Somewhere: Gideon Lewis-Kraus’ “A Sense of Direction” Reviewed | Vol. 1 Brooklyn)
“When something is sold to me as a coming-of-age story, which Lish says the book is (along with a cautionary tale), I mentally begin to reference the old standbys: Great Expectations, Duddy, Catcher, etc. That setup really made me look at the illustrations in a different way than I may have if he hadn’t included an introduction. I did mention Pettibon, but flipping through the pages again, I see some Shel Silverstein and something that brings to mind the Scary Stories You Tell in the Dark books.” (via Atticus Lish’s “Life Is With People”: A Discussion | Vol. 1 Brooklyn)
Have you ever seen something and felt like it was being unjustifiably held down by someone’s more athletic elbows? Yes, of course! Some rhetorical questions are too easy. This innocent feeling both caused and radiates from a humor journal called The Lowbrow Reader, created out of the editor-in-chief’s desire to champion his comic favorites. In it you’ll read essays about unloved or unconsidered subjects, and you’ll in turn wonder why everyone isn’t considering and loving what you hold in your hands. (via Giving Idiocy Its Due: “The Lowbrow Reader Reader” Reviewed | Vol. 1 Brooklyn)
“Not shy with his opinions, though always backed by intelligent argumentation, D’agostino makes a compelling case for the irrelevance of memoirs as the genre now exists. Fiction, in this case felt too removed, but his novel contains numerous elements of fiction to create a dramatic story. He changed his younger brother to a sister, and packs of a wallop of an emotional gut punch at the end of the book that in no way corresponds to actual life events.” (via On Slacker Novels and Killing Darlings: Kris D’Agostino | Vol. 1 Brooklyn)
“Doyle read some expanded versions of riffs recently seen on his Twitter feed, in a piece titled “Hologram Tupac Gets Shot.” Read these with the inflated intensity of a Post headline: “Hologram Bin Laden serving chicken kiev at Walmart. Hologram Steinbeck feeding grapes to your aunt. Nude. Hologram Dick Clark showing up on the display during your colonoscopy. Hologram Hemingway reading The Hunger Games on a flight to Barcelona, giggling. Hologram James Brown leaving troll comments on every Thought Catalog article, snickering with glee.”” (via PANK Magazine invades Brooklyn at WORD. | The Outlet: the Blog of Electric Literature)
Your Morning Shot: Norman Mailer
“Every moment of one’s existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.” - Norman Mailer
