Colson Whitehead has announced that his new book, Zone One, will be published in October. It’s a disaster novel! Whitehead tweeted yesterday that it “concerns the rehabilitation of NYC after the apocalypse,” adding later, "if the book were a mash-up, it'd be Leonard Cohen's 'The Future' + Wire's 'Reuters' + Joy Division's 'Decades'." Whitehead is the author of, among other things, a nonfiction book about the city (Colossus of New York), a satire about branding (Apex Hides the Hurt), and the most hilarious Twitter feed we know of. Is it too much to hope that this postapocalyptic novel is a comedy?
Rupert Murdoch’s iPad newspaper, The Daily, launches at an event at the Guggenheim today at 11 am. Among the new e-paper's staff are journalists from the New Yorker, the New York Times, The Atlantic and other old-media stalwarts. As the Times reported last fall, The Daily will have about one hundred editors and writers, and a first-year budget of thirty million dollars.
Wayne Barrett—the dogged reporter and author of Rudy!: An Investigative Biography of Rudy Giuliani—was let go by the Village Voice in early January. Less than a month later, Tina Brown has asked him to join her Daily Beast/Newsweek venture.
Tonight at the New School, the French cultural institute Villa Gillet and n+1 magazine are hosting “Catastrophe Practice,” a panel discussion featuring philosopher Jean-Pierre Dupuy, University of Lyons president Michel Lussault, and artist Josh Neufeld. The discussion “begins with the premise that catastrophe is the norm or rule of modern life—the nightmare inversion to the Enlightenment account of human progress.”
