Wow.
by Adam | Thursday 11 February 2010
Or to bastardize Voltaire: If this person didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Thanks to TFR reader Jason for sending this (as well as many other things) my way....
Claiming J.D. Salinger (1919-2010)
by Adam | Friday 29 January 2010
Let me get this little bit out of the way right now: Louis Menand of The New Yorker wrote the following about "The Catcher in the Rye" ten years ago and I don't think it's been said any better...
Click here to continue reading "Claiming J.D. Salinger (1919-2010)" »
Naked and the Conflicted
by Adam | Monday 18 January 2010
Perhaps an indulgent exercise considering the tragedy we're all reading about, BUT... for those of you interested in following a controversy that is raging around the literary establishment these days (whatever any of that means), a few weeks ago, Katie...
Fugue State: Assert Your Dominance (Bears)
by Adam | Wednesday 2 September 2009
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American Avalon, a Tennessee paradise. The outskirts of the park, however, are a flailing, tacky Southern waiting room. There is a highway stretch filled with chapels, theme parks, chain restaurants. Dollywood spans...
Click here to continue reading "Fugue State: Assert Your Dominance (Bears)" »
Summer 2009: Introduction to Fugue State
by Adam | Saturday 29 August 2009
Dissociative Fugue Disorder: When a person is in a fugue state, he'll pick up and travel suddenly to some random point, not at all sure why he's doing it, and sometimes with little memory of who he is. This summer...
Click here to continue reading "Summer 2009: Introduction to Fugue State" »
A.E. Hotchner on Hemingway's "new" 'A Moveable Feast'
by Adam | Monday 20 July 2009
The account of how A Moveable Feast came into being from Hotchner's point-of-view is probably more interesting than the actual controversy itself....
Click here to continue reading "A.E. Hotchner on Hemingway's "new" 'A Moveable Feast'" »
Starlight, PA
by Adam | Friday 3 July 2009
My first and last foray into writing for young adults. When I was sixteen years old, I boarded a bus from Newark Airport to reach a place I knew only as Starlight, PA. The name itself, Starlight, had magical...
excerpt
by Adam | Monday 29 June 2009
While I'm teaching this summer and working on bigger projects, I'll do my best to keep you posted on little things. In the meantime, here's a bit of what I've been working on: I’ve come to stay here more and...
Review: Desire Under the Elms
by Adam | Tuesday 28 April 2009
Despair has always been a currency with which the world of letters trades. This simply is. Despair is amorphous and timeless. Its depth is unmeasurable and its manifestations endless. As a new revival of Eugene O'Neill's "Desire Under the...
Click here to continue reading "Review: Desire Under the Elms" »
Sammiches
by Adam | Monday 9 March 2009
The day started sunny and we weren't looking for trouble, my friend and I went all the way uptown near where he used to live. It was the second nicest day of the year and there was traffic blocking...
Some Wisdom
by Adam | Thursday 5 February 2009
There is a beautiful moment in the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna. The general. The great general. He's standing in his chariot. And all the chariots are readied for war. And across the valley, he sees his opponents. And there he sees...
Dear West Elm Marketing Corps
by Adam | Saturday 20 December 2008
Dear West Elm Marketing Corps: As the Christmas (and, as I understand it, miscellaneous other) holiday hours are nearing, it disappoints me that I’ve yet to hear back from your office regarding the picture entitled “Urban Cocoa,” which I...
Click here to continue reading "Dear West Elm Marketing Corps" »
New York Onanism: An Apology
by Adam | Sunday 9 November 2008
Parts II & III of New York Onanism are forthcoming, I went into writer's block after being so pretentious....
Click here to continue reading "New York Onanism: An Apology" »
The Novel vs. The State
by Adam | Monday 15 September 2008
I telegraph mockingbird laughter back and ask him a last question.
“How are you?”
This is a question of paradox. It is the question of both an acolyte and an equalizer, something you'd ask an immortal mortal and his other, something that would be considered odd as part of any other valediction.
“I’m well,” he says. “Thank you. I’m very well.”
Review: Bon Iver, "For Emma, Forever Ago"
by Adam | Saturday 8 March 2008
Sometimes, my friends interrupt my life to impose imperatives upon me. This has to be, in a lot ways, what friendship is about. The closest of them will demand (as I probably do too often of them) that I stop...
Click here to continue reading "Review: Bon Iver, "For Emma, Forever Ago"" »
Book Review: Exit Ghost by Philip Roth
by Adam | Wednesday 20 February 2008
Philip Roth has not yet left the building. We will note that Roth, growing more in his later years, has already taken pains to prepare us for the inevitable. His alter-ego Nathan Zuckerman has ushered us through the epic...
Click here to continue reading "Book Review: Exit Ghost by Philip Roth" »
The Liars' Club (Damn You Mary Karr)
by Adam | Sunday 21 October 2007
Harmless Lies: My College Roommate or The Bar Stool Lie We are at (fill in one-word bar name) and, if I am lucky, I have exactly 45 seconds to make an impression on you (falsely appearing plaintive and momentarily neglected...
Click here to continue reading "The Liars' Club (Damn You Mary Karr)" »
Seasonal Syndrome
by Adam | Sunday 14 October 2007
I woke up at 7:16 this morning, distressed by the sound of my radiator making its first rounds of the season. It was only white noise but it scared me out of a dream about something I'll never recall. I...
Racist Warlocks and Sunflowers
by Adam | Sunday 26 August 2007
Spoiler Alert: The end of this post contains the first two sentences of my forthcoming book about racist warlocks. Should you be a warlock purist, I strongly urge you not to read the last section of this post. I...
Click here to continue reading "Racist Warlocks and Sunflowers" »
Le Homme Bleu
by Adam | Saturday 25 August 2007
A man doesn't have time in his life to have time for everything. He doesn't have seasons enough to have a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes Was wrong about that. | Yehuda Amichai | My house here is covered in...
Orsay Day
by Adam | Monday 13 August 2007
At the risk of offending someone's artistic sensibilities, I took pictures of some of my favorites at the Musee d'Orsay: (I've also put to use my amateur deconstruction and analysis skills to make the art banal for everyone else. Enjoy!)...
The Montmartre Arcade Fire
by Adam | Sunday 12 August 2007
Artistic/symbolic blurriness or low battery? You decide. I napped and "worked" until 10:30 on Saturday night, showered and made it to Montmartre at midnight. For those unfamiliar, Montmartre is on the far northern end of Paris (I think), on...
Click here to continue reading "The Montmartre Arcade Fire" »
A Mime, A Beret, and the Champs-Élysées
by Adam | Sunday 12 August 2007
Trying to look as French as possible here. Champs Elysees: Part One One day when I'm traveling dishonestly, I will wake up early (or stay out all night) so that I can walk the Champs Elysees when it's empty...
Click here to continue reading " A Mime, A Beret, and the Champs-Élysées" »
Croque Madame and Eiffel Power
by Adam | Sunday 12 August 2007
Only the French (and Tony Parker) would place this backdrop for a basketball court. Inspired by the stories of French apostasy at the Jewish Museum of Art and History, I decided that I would break all the Shabbas laws...
Click here to continue reading "Croque Madame and Eiffel Power" »
The First Twenty-Four (Hours)
by Adam | Saturday 11 August 2007
I woke in a panic as I had missed free breakfast at the hotel and had overslept to counterbalance the difference between my intended and actual bedtimes. I was due uptown (which is a totally inaccurate but wholly-of-habit term) in...
Click here to continue reading "The First Twenty-Four (Hours)" »
Behind All This...
by Adam | Thursday 19 July 2007
He was formed half by the ethics of his father and half by the cruelties of war... -Foreword to a Yehuda Amichai anthology. #4 of Amichai's Seven Laments for the War-Dead 4 I came upon an old zoology textbook, Brehm,...
An Awkward Disquisition on My Blackness
by Adam | Wednesday 20 June 2007
Craftsmanship has never been a strong suit of mine. I blame it on growing up left-handed and being told to write and engage in sports right-handed (and by extension, I am blaming Texas) as well as a motor skills...
Click here to continue reading "An Awkward Disquisition on My Blackness" »
La Vie En Rose
by Adam | Wednesday 13 June 2007
...I do not speak much French and my exposure to Edith Piaf was initiated by the tribute that seemingly half of my favorite musicians pay to her work, but I went to this movie and it was a car crash on celluloid, a complete fucking disasterous mess, and perfectly emblematic of the life of the Sparrow...