Two words: credit crunch * Barbara Ehrenreich celebrates the 160th birthday of The Communist Manifesto * Thomas Frank on Norman Mailer * Colm Toibin on James Baldwin and Barrack Obama: “Both men set about establishing their authority by exploring themselves and how they came to make it up as they went along, as much as by exploring the world around them. In Obama’s own mixed background and complex heritage he saw America; out of his own success, he saw hope and a new set of values. Out of his own childhood Baldwin produced a number of enduring literary masterpieces and out of his efforts to make sense of his own complex, playful personality and his own unique place in history he produced some of the best essays written in the twentieth century. Reading these essays and Obama’s speeches, especially the ones that are high on inspiration and short on policy, one is struck by the connection between them, two men remaking the world against all the odds in their own likeness, not afraid to ask, when faced with the future of America as represented by its children, using Baldwin’s wonderful phrase, questions that are alien to most politicians: “What will happen to all that beauty?”” * 3:AM contributor Ben Pleasants is speaking at the Karl Hess Club, L.A., on October 20. The subject: ‘The Bunker Hill Novels: Fante, Bukowski, and Miles‘ * All hail HTMLGIANT, the collaborative “internet literature magazine blog of the future” * Meeting House interview Kelly Link: “I don’t trust people who seem trustworthy, at least not in fiction. I’ve read too many mystery novels. In real life I think I’m more often gullible than not, easily disarmed or charmed by people I shouldn’t be charmed by. I’m not great at reading people—it’s taken me years to figure out how to know when someone is drunk, for example. But in a book I do love an unreliable narrator, or someone who is inconsistent in ways that are consistent with my experience of human beings.” * Kelly Link‘s Magic for Beginners is now a free download * Will Self, one of Time Out London’s 40th birthday heroes: “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a new movement in literature. The psychogeography thing has developed more in London than anywhere else and that could take on a radical evolution. We are a world city and there is nothing that will happen out there that will not affect us. The YBAs came out of the last recession and it doesn’t matter whether we have boom or bust, decadence or disaster, the arts will benefit. Nothing will be lost in the economy of ideas.” * ReadySteadyBook interview 3:AM‘s Lee Rourke: “You know, I don’t really understand the distinction between ‘cult fiction’ and ‘literature’. I see Blanchot as a cult author as much as I do any of the writers that have appeared on the pages of Scarecrow over the years. I do not look down on writing just because it is seen as ‘cult’. Some fiction is about sex, drugs and violence and some fiction is about writing and its impossibility. It doesn’t matter to me. I just want to read good writing. Life would be fucking horrendous if everyone just published and read Blanchot just as much as if everyone just published and read Boris Vian. Saying that, a bit more of both wouldn’t do the current publishing climate any harm at all.” * Bill Ectric interviews The Secret History of Moscow author Ekaterina Sedia: “European alchemy and witchcraft does tend to get a short shrift in much of fantasy. Somehow, people tend to focus on pseudomedieval settings and Celtic/Germanic myth, even though tradition of folk witchcraft, alchemy, and magic is very interesting — it’s almost like science crossed with urban legends. Certainly makes for fascinating reading as well as interesting variation on European-based fantasy.” * The current Light Leaks [PDF preview] is given over to polaroid * Alt folk musician Ryan Adams joins that “illustrious” rockers-who-write club and signs a deal with Akashic books; according to Paste magazine, he’s already defending his literary debut Infinity Blues * ‘Indie rockers aren’t playing Americana, they’re playing dress-up’ * The genius of Osbert Lancaster & a Lancaster gallery * Poet John Ashberry’s collages and artist Pablo Picasso’s poetry * The Double-Breasted Book Jacket, a blog * Penguin hunting in Scotland * Lady Chatterley and the Penguin revolution (via John Baker) * Don’t know what’s more shocking; this gushing tribute – “Tori Spelling was amazing to work with. What can I say, except that she has to be the most under-appreciated actress in Hollywood. She has been honing her craft since she was a little girl, and had to work twice as hard to overshadow her connections” – or the fact they’re referring to Cthulhu, a modern (queer) version of H. P. Lovecraft.
