Tom McCarthy interviewed in the New York Times‘s Paper Cuts blog: “I’ve just signed off the final proofs of my novel “C,” which will be out with Alfred A. Knopf this fall. Now I’m going about the agonizing process of starting a new one. I say “agonizing” because it takes a while for the little cluster of ideas and half-impressions to gather momentum, acquire critical mass, whatever, so for the first few months it seems like you’re clutching at straws. One good side-effect of this is that it makes your last book seem (by comparison) like a masterpiece. It’d be good if you could just jump the present one and go on to the next, so that the present one would be conferred masterpiece status retroactively before it was even begun; then it’d be easier to write”. * Ryan McGinley: “There are echoes of Larry Clark, Nan Goldin and Robert Mapplethorpe in his photography, but McGinley has made the move from punky street reportage to portraiture, from art to fashion, and then back again, in ways that were unavailable to them”. * Three short films announcing Granta‘s Sex issue. You can already read Evie Wyld‘s memoir (“Woman’s Body: An Owner’s Manual”). * The Horse Hospital (where 3:AM held its very first event in 2003) have revamped their website. * A Jamie Reid exhibition in London (16 May-20 June). * David Mitchell profiled. * Nazi textbook prepared children for life under German rule. * 50 places to find literary criticism online (via). * New Faces mod exhibition ends with a bang. * On POD publishing. * Graphic novelist James Sturm gives up the internet for 4 months. New writer quits social networking sites. * Lost literature. * David Vann’s writing tips. * Underwater steampunk city in Second Life. * Tall tales of the London junk scene. * The private life of books. * Moleskin Passions. * China Mi éville (see 3:AM interview) lands BSFA award. * Dryden and Pope. * How the evolution of media is changing storytelling. * Treme. * Metropolis restored. * William Faulkner reading from As I Lay Dying. * Alain Badiou on Krapp’s Last Tape. * Reading easier on an iPhone for dyslexics. * LSD and the birth of the PC. * Psychogeographic mapping of London placed on top of Manhattan. * Defunct Magazine. * Spring issue of Flux magazine. * NME redesigned. * Lomo boss interviewed. * Iranian author receives death threats. * Patti Smith celebrates Henry Darger‘s birthday. * Pub rock Facebook page. * History of Penguin paperbacks. * Mark Twain filmed in 1909. * The Polaroid revival. * Stressed teachers contemplate suicide. * Paper dolls. * Philip Pullman has lunch with the FT. * David Foster Wallace‘s successful afterlife. * New version of Preppy Handbook. * Famous writers’ Rate My Professor pages. * Peter Gowland RIP. * Pencils made from human ashes. * Preview what your site looks like on an iPad. * Rupert Thompson in the Guardian. * Avant Garde Preschool. * Liminal, a new literary journal for and by teens. * On Finnegans Wake. * Metal Machine Music. * The Automated Nation (starring Sam Jordison). * An interview with Grace Jones.
[Pic: Boys Looking at Girls Looking at Books by Emma Pick.]
