Apr
Tripoli book fair sells previously banned books
Last week, Tripoli hosted the city’s largest ever secondhand book sale, offering books that had previously been forbidden during Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. Held in Martyrs Square, book stands with academic books, books of poetry, and novels, as well as Western books offered a range of choices to the bustling crowds…
Funds from the three-day fair will go towards building a mobile library that will visit schools.
The range of books available at the book fair contributed to the popularity of the event. Western books sold out on the first day, and some attendees were annoyed to see publications from Gaddafi’s regime.
Mar
Mar
Feb
James Baldwin and Tao Lin, from 25 Fascinating Photos of Famous Writers at Home
h/t Scribner Books
Feb
Jan
I have felt negatively about people who seem like they are bragging about drug use in order to be perceived a certain way, but generally I feel more irritated by people who brag about their sobriety.
If I left drug use out of my writing, I would be hiding something about myself so that people wouldn’t judge me.
I also don’t feel like there is anything particularly “cool” about the way I do drugs. Most of the time I am taking various pills alone in my room. I like pills because they aren’t demanding or inconsistent. I usually spend the first half of my drug binges desperately trying to become motivated enough to be productive, but eventually resign to staring at porn for three hours and feeling good about my inevitable death.
Jan
Jan
Whether in actual fact the policy of the boot-on-the-face can go on indefinitely seems doubtful. My own belief is that the ruling oligarchy will find less arduous and wasteful ways of governing and of satisfying its lust for power, and these ways will resemble those which I described in Brave New World.
Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience. In other words, I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World. The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency. Meanwhile, of course, there may be a large scale biological and atomic war — in which case we shall have nightmares of other and scarcely imaginable kinds.
Oct
“Richard Yates” author Tao Lin turned up at the New Yorker party uninvited after hearing about it from attendees (this reporter included), but he was turned away at the door. Mr. Lin said he “wanted to talk to Zadie Smith,” who was invited, because both he and Ms. Smith write their books at New York University’s Bobst Library. (In an email, Mr. Lin said he has “zero hard feelings toward the New Yorker,” adding “I feel bad for causing them inconvenience. Can’t stress that enough.”)
Eventually Mr. Lin, who came with a date carrying a giant leaf, headed to a different hotel—the Standard—for another party, this one attended by writers for Vice magazine.
Ms. Smith, on the other hand, stayed home.
lol.
Oct
Saw Neil deGrasse Tyson and Tao Lin whilst walking home this week. Wondering if the authors of books I’ve recently read are stalking me. Also, they were both carrying tote bags…
Sep
Norman Mailer’s 1969 Race for Mayor of New York City
Mr. Mailer…was perhaps the greatest writer since Winston Churchill to seek elective office. If that was not disqualification enough, he had also been convicted of stabbing one of his wives. He promised that, if elected, he would at least deliver the bad news couched in “elegant language.” But he also delivered sufficient offense to fill a devil’s dictionary of political incorrectness.
Even his three-word campaign slogan — a vulgarization of “No More Bull” — was unprintable.
“The difference between me and the other candidates,” Mr. Mailer said, “is that I’m no good and I can prove it.”
Mailer’s platform included the following:
New York City would be split off from the rest of New York State, and achieve independent statehood as the 51st State of the U.S. The campaign sought to free the city from the control of “upstate legislators who don’t care about the city but control our schools, police, housing, and money.”
All private cars would be banned from Manhattan Island. Buses and taxicabs would be permitted, with the number of cabs increased. Parking lots would be built outside Manhattan at strategic locations. A monorail, built around the circumference of Manhattan, would service these lots, stopping also at rail stations and water ferry terminals. A free bus and jitney service would operate in Midtown, the city’s most congested area. Publicly owned bicycles would be available to all at no cost.
The elimination of private cars from Manhattan Island would reduce pollution there by 60%. All vehicles and incinerators in the city would be required to have pollution control devices.
Local neighborhoods would know best how to control crime in their communities by employing policemen who have the respect of the community because they live there. The City-State would fund neighborhoods to administer their own crime prevention programs, and would aid them only if they so desired.
Murray Rothbard wrote in a 1969 issue of The Libertarian Forum:
Norman Mailer’s surprise entry into the Democratic primary for Mayor of New York City, to be held on June 17, provides the most refreshing libertarian political campaign in decades. Mailer has taken everyone by surprise by his platform as well as his sudden entry into the political ranks. The Mailer platform stems from one brilliantly penetrating overriding plank: the absolute decentralization of the swollen New York City bureaucracy into dozens of constituent neighborhood villages. This is the logic of the recent proposals for “decentralization” and “community control” brought to its consistent and ultimate conclusion: the turmoil and plight of our overblown and shattered urban government structures, most especially New York, are to be solved by smashing the urban governmental apparatus, and fragmenting it into a myriad of constituent fragments.
Sep
"Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer for Freedom" ebook now available
The book includes letters from prison, songs, poems, courtroom statements and tributes to the band.
Profits from the sale of the ebook will support the Pussy Riot legal defense team.
Sep
I was seated next to Malcolm Gladwell at a restaurant in Brooklyn tonight. Overheard him explaining his hatred for football and knew it was him.
Sep
Pussy Riot eBook Coming Soon
The book will include letters from prison, songs, poems, courtroom statements and tributes to the band. Profits from book sales will support the group’s legal defense team.
