Guernica and Interview are running excerpts of Cynthia Carr’s excellent new biography of downtown artist David Wojnarowicz (that’s pronounced Voy-nar-o-vitch). And if you haven’t read it already in print, check out Luc Sante’s equally excellent review of the book from our summer issue.
A devotional choral work by sixteenth-century composer Thomas Tallis has raced to the top of the UK classical music charts after getting a mention in the sadomasochistic mommy porn trilogy, 50 Shades of Gray. Meanwhile, at the New York Times, Adam Sternbergh muses about whether it’s creepy to see somebody reading 50 Shades on the subway.
It’s especially difficult to judge a book by its cover when covers are all starting to look alike. The Atlantic wonders why handscripted titles over blocky, simple illustrations are all the rage in book cover design.
Oxford American founder and editor Marc Smirnoff and managing editor Carol Ann Fitzgerald have been abruptly ousted from their jobs at the magazine following an internal investigation. Publisher Warwick Sabin refused to comment on the matter, but local news sites in Arkansas—where the magazine is based—are reporting that Smirnoff and Fitzgerald were locked out of their offices last Wednesday.
The Days of Yore, a website that interviews writers about how they got their start, talks with former Believer editor and current Amazon Publishing editor Ed Park about his days as a Village Voice copyeditor. (See also Park's classic Bookforum review of the sixteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style.)
In the Baffler, Steve Almond takes on John Stewart, "the most trusted man in America": “Our lazy embrace of Stewart and Colbert is a testament to our own impoverished comic standards. We have come to accept coy mockery as genuine subversion and snarky mimesis as originality. It would be more accurate to describe our golden age of political comedy as the peak output of a lucrative corporate plantation whose chief export is a cheap and powerful opiate for progressive angst and rage.”
