Dog eared: Odds and ends.
NOVEL: A Living Installation at the Flux Factory in NYC ended last week. NOVEL was an art installation where three novelists lived in individually designed habitats for a month and worked on a novel in view of the public. The blogs of the three authors are still up: Grant Bailie, Ranbir Sidhu, and Laurie Stone.

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Looking for some summer reading sure to perturb the Bushies? Then consult Human Events’ (The National Conservative Weekly) list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries, as compiled by a list of conservative pundits and such. All the usual suspects are there: The Communist Manifesto, Quotations from Chairman Mao, The Feminine Mystique (!), Unsafe At Any Speed and Introduction to Psychoanalysis (both ‘honorable mentions’).

Of course, you can also check out John Doe’s recommended reading list, which is much more sane.

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Just finished: Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair, With Music by Helene Stapinski. I found this on the Bitch Magazine Summer 2004 Reading List and loved it loved it loved it. Stapinski weaves her love of music with her years of drumming in bands (I Hate Jane, then Stephonic) and her often-rocky relationship with her husband. After reading this, I found my copy of the Elvis Costello / Burt Bacharach collaboration from 1998, Painted From Memory. Stapinski writes at length about this album, especially since she interviewed Elvis Costello about it. I didn’t really appreciate it when it was first released. I just couldn’t get used to Elvis singing all those slow ballads. But now I’m taking a more critical listen to it. (Oh, Bitch also has a Summer 2005 Reading List posted.)

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Current Zine of Note: So Midwest, available from Loop Distro, Quimby’s and Pander Zine Distro. I almost hesitate to call this a zine – it’s 236 digest-sized pages bound with two rubber bands! I’m only half-way through it (reading it during breaks and lunch), and really digging it, especially Luran’s tales of working at the “Food Hole” – you know, that upscale, trendy, organic and expensive supermarket that isn’t Trader Joe’s (which is actually quite reasonably priced). Also includes tales of punk rock touring, Madison WI and much more.

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If you haven’t scrolled down and noticed, I’ve added a “shop Amazon.com” box on this blog. If you do shop regularly at Amazon.com, please consider visiting this blog first and clicking through to Amazon from it. You don’t have to enter a title to search for, you can just click on the Amazon.com logo to get there. That way, if you purchase anything, a very small portion of the sale price goes to help fund my independent publishing projects. Thank you very much.
- posted by Synd-e @ 7:52 PM