This is my tumblelog on books, the teams I root for (NYRB and the Nats), artists around my Harlem neighborhood, and our urban (condo) garden. Looking for Philip Rappaport, editor? That's me, too. click here. You can email me
newyorker: A Haggadah for the Internet Age In their new Haggadah, Foer (who edited the text and accompanying commentary) and Englander (who translated the traditional Hebrew and Aramaic text) take delight in the book’s complexities, and they use its contradictions to celebrate the act of reading itself. This is a Haggadah one must literally grapple with: it is large enough that sitting at a crowded table, you’d have to hold it against your body and spread your arms out to keep it open. The text runs in multiple directions: there is the traditional Hebrew text and a parallel English translation printed vertically. At the top of most pages, printed horizontally, there is a time line enumerating signal events in Jewish history—to read it, you have to turn the book clockwise by ninety degrees. The commentary to the main text is contained on horizontally printed pages that require turning the book another ninety degrees, this time counterclockwise, and you encounter blocks of closely printed text floating on the page, inviting a mood-dependent dive-in. All this crisscrossing text and rotating of the book make us aware of its material qualities—its generous proportions and visual amplitude—while also linking to the kind of reading we do on the Internet, skipping around, following our instincts, finding unexpected connections. It’s a version of the Haggadah particularly suited to our age of distraction, and yet, it also demands serious attention. The turning of the book brings to mind a famous phrase about the Torah by the Talmudic rabbi Ben Bag-Bag: “Turn it and turn it, for everything is in it.” - Sasha Weiss on Jonathan Safran Foer’s and Nathan Englander’s “The New American Haggadah”: http://nyr.kr/HDcOiN

newyorker:

A Haggadah for the Internet Age

In their new Haggadah, Foer (who edited the text and accompanying commentary) and Englander (who translated the traditional Hebrew and Aramaic text) take delight in the book’s complexities, and they use its contradictions to celebrate the act of reading itself. This is a Haggadah one must literally grapple with: it is large enough that sitting at a crowded table, you’d have to hold it against your body and spread your arms out to keep it open. The text runs in multiple directions: there is the traditional Hebrew text and a parallel English translation printed vertically. At the top of most pages, printed horizontally, there is a time line enumerating signal events in Jewish history—to read it, you have to turn the book clockwise by ninety degrees. The commentary to the main text is contained on horizontally printed pages that require turning the book another ninety degrees, this time counterclockwise, and you encounter blocks of closely printed text floating on the page, inviting a mood-dependent dive-in.

All this crisscrossing text and rotating of the book make us aware of its material qualities—its generous proportions and visual amplitude—while also linking to the kind of reading we do on the Internet, skipping around, following our instincts, finding unexpected connections. It’s a version of the Haggadah particularly suited to our age of distraction, and yet, it also demands serious attention. The turning of the book brings to mind a famous phrase about the Torah by the Talmudic rabbi Ben Bag-Bag: “Turn it and turn it, for everything is in it.”

- Sasha Weiss on Jonathan Safran Foer’s and Nathan Englander’s “The New American Haggadah”: http://nyr.kr/HDcOiN

(via nathanenglander)

You don't say?

George Stroumboulopoulos: There's one thing that's interesting about your books. I noticed that you write women really well and really different. Where does that come from?

George R.R. Martin: You know, I've always considered women to be people.

vintageanchor: “Good writing is clear. Talented writing is energetic. Good writing avoids errors. Talented writing makes things happen in the reader’s mind—-vividly, forcefully…” ― Samuel R. DelanyHappy birthday to Harlem native, sci-fi novelist and short story writer Samuel Ray Delany (born today in 1942), winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and Pilgrim Awards.

vintageanchor:

“Good writing is clear. Talented writing is energetic. Good writing avoids errors. Talented writing makes things happen in the reader’s mind—-vividly, forcefully…”
― Samuel R. Delany

Happy birthday to Harlem native, sci-fi novelist and short story writer Samuel Ray Delany (born today in 1942), winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and Pilgrim Awards.

“Rice-Gonzalez’s very honest book is the story of Chulito’s coming-out process in a neighborhood where few dare to be openly gay, much less him, a streetwise, 16-year-old high school dropout who works in the drug business.
‘Chulito’ is out in the Bronx
benppollack: A Boy to Be Sacrificed IN the Morocco of the 1980s, where homosexuality did not, of course, exist, I was an effeminate little boy, a boy to be sacrificed, a humiliated body who bore upon himself every hypocrisy, everything left unsaid. By the time I was 10, though no one spoke of it, I knew what happened to boys like me in our impoverished society; they were designated victims, to be used, with everyone’s blessing, as easy sexual objects by frustrated men. And I knew that no one would save me — not even my parents, who surely loved me. For them too, I was shame, filth. A “zamel.”         I’ve met Abdellah Taia and have read all his books in french and the one translated into English. He is brave and beautiful. Find his book and support this important writer.

benppollack:

A Boy to Be Sacrificed

IN the Morocco of the 1980s, where homosexuality did not, of course, exist, I was an effeminate little boy, a boy to be sacrificed, a humiliated body who bore upon himself every hypocrisy, everything left unsaid. By the time I was 10, though no one spoke of it, I knew what happened to boys like me in our impoverished society; they were designated victims, to be used, with everyone’s blessing, as easy sexual objects by frustrated men. And I knew that no one would save me — not even my parents, who surely loved me. For them too, I was shame, filth. A “zamel.”        

I’ve met Abdellah Taia and have read all his books in french and the one translated into English. He is brave and beautiful. Find his book and support this important writer.

I could be very happy, except that I am broke

Ain’t it the truth

poetrysince1912:

Dear Harriet Monroe—

      Spring is here. —and I could be very happy, except that I am broke. Would you mind paying me now instead of upon publication for those so stunning verses of mine which you have? I am become very, very thin, and have taken to smoking Virginia tobacco.

                                                   Wistfully yours,

                                                                Edna St. Vincent Millay

P.S. I am awfully broke. Would you mind paying me a lot?

(via doubledaybooks)

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