Mark Sarvas's Blog, page 26

Gourmet Library To NYU.

A smidge of redemption in the Conde Nast meltdown.

FSG Brings Tidings of Comfort and Joy.

Rejoice!  For those who do not troll through the comments section, Mark Krotov from FSG writes:

"Katherine! Exciting news! FSG/Hill and Wang is publishing Barthes's Mourning Diary in October! Let there be joy/mourning! Also there will be reissues of Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, and A Lover's Discourse!"
Blessed be the names Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.  
I go back to A Lover's Discourse every time I get my heart broken.  What did people do before 1978?

Viva Lost Vegas: Part Two.

"I like elevators, which give you the feeling of going somewhere without any of the anxiety associated with travel."

Matthew Specktor's installment of the holiday tag-team story is up at FiveChapters today.

Sara Wilson Update.

Sara Wilson's thoughtful, painful Perez Hilton profile (the one I mentioned the other day was not on line) is now on line.

Katherine Taylor Has Not Seized The Day.

I fear I am an orchid.

Santa Monica:  more people, more strangers.
Two books we must somehow find a way to publish stateside.  (Picador, I beg of you!)
Poets die young.  James Kaufman warned us about this years ago.  
I'd like to root for Alabama, but now I can't.  Hook 'em Horns!
I am a little late getting started this morning because last night Matthew Specktor started talking about Seize The Day, and then I became obsessed by Cynthia Ozick's introduction, and have done nothing but read all...

Viva Lost Vegas.

Dave Daley's consistently great FiveChapters.com launches its holiday tag-team serial today.  One story told in five installments by five writers:  Matthew Specktor, Jerry Stahl, John Haskell, Strawberry Saroyan, and me, Katherine. There's drink, drugs, gambling, and a dysfunctional family holiday.  In Las Vegas. 

(Self-promotion is ugly, but in fact this is selfless promotion.)

Katherine Taylor's Monday Morning News Feed.

"If I had something bad happen to me, then I needed to write so it would get better.  But then when for a while bad things stopped happening, I didn't have anything to write."
Speaking of The Guardian, what has become of the Writers' Rooms series?
"Members of Keats's immediate circle (like his later admirers) were anxious to discredit the unmanly story that the poet had been killed by a review."
Here's some vintage Mark Sarvas.  You're welcome!
Demise of Kirkus doesn't get exactly same reaction a...

David Foster Wallace Did Not Answer His Phone.

The New Yorker, as you already know, has a new DFW story.  The GQ blog has Deborah Treisman on DFW's methods of communication.  You all have permission now to not answer your phones, ever.  It's a relief, isn't it.  

In other news, Conde Nast is now offering 12 issues of Gourmet for $100.  Gourmet turns out to be more valuable than McKinsey thought!

This is some of the best news I've heard all week.

Last minute plans.

Tonight in Los Angeles:

I am pulling for Ndamukong Suh.

Strawberry Saroyan told me I don't post enough.  She told me this at Sara Wilson's Hanukkah party last night.  Also, I have failed to post to Sara Wilson's excellent, sad portrayal of Perez Hilton that appears in the current LA Magazine.  Then I realized it's not on line, so I couldn't have linked to it if I had wanted to.  And I want to! 
I'm sure I don't have to remind TEV readers what tonight is.  The Heisman Trophy ceremony, of course.  I adore Tim Tebow, with his cute sweet crying on the ...