Bill Cheng's Blog, page 38
April 9, 2014
millionsmillions:
Patton Oswalt, who you may know for...
Patton Oswalt, who you may know for his eight-minute filibuster on the subject of Star Wars, is a lifelong fan of Stephen King. As a way of marking the 40th anniversary of the publication of Carrie, he reflects on the roots of his fandom, which trace back to a grade-school reading of The Stand. (Our own Janet Potter reviewed Oswalt’s last book.)
April 8, 2014
just-another-cup-of-tea:
incidentalcomics:
Styles of...
Novelist (and Workshop co-host) Kaitlyn Greenidge’s Axe...
Novelist (and Workshop co-host) Kaitlyn Greenidge’s Axe Wound on Guernica
“So my brother Pete was chopping wood yesterday and the axe slipped. His hand slipped right over the blade.” Nick wiped his nose, “You should have seen it. There was blood everywhere. He got an axe wound on his finger.”
“He got a what?” Carlos said. He was smiling. All the other guys who were listening in started smiling, too.
Nick smiled back at them, nervously. “A cut from an axe.”
April 7, 2014
April 6, 2014
In the late 1960s, The New Yorker sent Matthiessen to Grand...
In the late 1960s, The New Yorker sent Matthiessen to Grand Cayman to sail on an old schooner in search of green turtles along the Miskito Bank off Nicaragua. He eventually turned in an article, but he felt that a novel would better express the truth of what he’d seen. He spent the next eight years experimenting with the right way to tell the story, and the book that resulted, “Far Tortuga,” is radical in nearly every way. Matthiessen uses blank space, pages of dialogue without quotation marks or attribution, pictographs, hand-drawn illustrations and, perhaps most striking for a writer who loves to draw comparisons in his work, only one or two similes in the entire book. “The trouble with metaphors and similes is they bring the author into it,” Matthiessen told me, “and I was trying to stay out of it.” The elimination of the ego is a standard part of Zen training, as is the admonition to keep things simple and free of adornment. “A roach out from underneath the cook shack with its antenna up, that was so striking and strange and beautiful that you don’t need ‘like a radio antenna’ or something like that,” he said. “You just don’t. The thing itself is so good.”
April 5, 2014
theparisreview:
RIP our co-founder and longtime friend Peter...
RIP our co-founder and longtime friend Peter Matthiessen. We are honored to have known him and will miss him dearly.
Read his Art of Fiction interview.
Read his story “A Replacement.”
Listen to Matthiessen on the art of travel writing.
Pictured: Matthiessen with Paris Review co-founders William Styron, Tom Guinzburg, and George Plimpton.
Shadow Country was big big big for me
mucholderthen:
Tiffany Ard // Nerdy Baby Artwork
Every child...
Tiffany Ard // Nerdy Baby Artwork
Every child is a scientist. All they do all day long is experiment. What is this thing? What does it do? Can I grab it? Can I squish it? Do things like this act like this? Or this? Do they taste good? Do they fit into the light socket? How does it all work? INPUT! MORE INPUT
SOURCE: Nerdy Baby
April 2, 2014
2. But my mother said she saw my father there, clear as day in...
2. But my mother said she saw my father there, clear as day in the middle of the night—a floating, fluttering specter with a dark and shadowy face.
A. However, my mother said she clearly saw my father there that evening—a floating, fluttering specter with a dark and shadowy face.
B. But my mother said she saw my father there, clear as day in the middle of the night—a certified public accountant in a navy blue suit.
March 31, 2014
unhistorical:
Vincent van Gogh (March 30, 1853 – July 29,...
Vincent van Gogh (March 30, 1853 – July 29, 1890)
I haven’t got it yet, but I’m hunting it and fighting for it, I want something serious, something fresh—something with soul in it! Onward, onward.
Inaba no shiro usagi [The hare of Inaba] (1885-1896)As retold...
Inaba no shiro usagi [The hare of Inaba] (1885-1896)
As retold by Mrs.T.H. James and Volunteer Translators
