May 2013
19 posts
3 tags
otherwise, logically, he would not be called Road...
Asked to discuss the violence in Road Runner cartoons, Mr. Jones quickly replied that ”there was nothing we ever did that wasn’t preceded by something in Chaplin or Keaton.”
”Everyone in America under the age of 45 grew up on our cartoons,” he said. ”Now, do you think they’ve been damaged by them?”
”And we had very strict rules about...
“In political jargon, useful idiot is a pejorative term for people perceived as...”
– Useful idiot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (via iamdavidbrothers)
See also “Useful anonymous questioner”.
(via highway62)
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a denim suit that made him look more like a social...
Hector Belascoarán Shayne had two exotic last names, a degree in engineering from the National University, and one eye less than most people. He was thirty-five years old, with an ex-wife, an ex-lover, one brother, one sister, a denim suit that made him look more like a social anthropologist than a detective, a .38 automatic in a drawer in his office in Mexico City, a slight limp from an old...
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the Mexican detective hero rejects ratiocination
In the Cuban detective novel, individuals do violence to the state by undermining its institutions. In the Mexican detective novel, it is the institutions— police, government, unions— who are the criminals. They attack individuals who threaten their hegemony, brutalizing whole sectors of society in their drive for money and power. As Paco Ignacio Taibo II puts it, the primary element of the...
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“Avoid passive voice. When you write in the passive voice you sound like a...”
– Andrea Lawlor, ”The Adjunct” (via millionsmillions)
“We present for work, for our friends, for women, for people we don’t even know...”
– Sleepless, Charlie Huston (via fairytalecreatures)
“At a workshop not too many years ago a newer writer began to condemn a best...”
– Tobias Buckell on “The fate of today’s book bloggers”
The C.C. Finlay quote: “A novel doesn’t excite readers because you took all the bad stuff out of it, it excites them because of all the good stuff that’s in it, regardless of the bad.”
(via malindalo)
In short: quality matters, but not in the...
2 tags
April 2013
40 posts
2 tags
theinsectworld:
Everywhere you go these days, if there’s a group that’s sponsoring where it is you are, the group gives you a tote bag. The tote bag has something written on it that is supposed to make you remember the group and the occasion every time later on that you use the tote bag, but when will you ever use all those tote bags? The only real use for your fourteenth tote bag is to hold the...
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Both Jonathan Winters and Charlie Chaplin gave me... →
Marvin Kaplan is an accomplished actor and comedian known for his trademark deadpan style. Read a Marvin Kaplan interview about his career on his official website.
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“I used to ponder why so many writers continued to write as though cameras had...”
– K.C. Constantine on craft.
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Crime fiction authors discuss pushing the genre's... →
womenindetectivefiction:
Authors talk about the genre of crime fiction at the LA Times Festival of Books.
“I think of crime fiction as being inherently political. And what I mean by that is that it’s inherently looking at distribution of power. What I love about crime fiction, and what I love about it as a writer and a reader, is that you’re able to take these kind of high-minded ideals and put...
3 tags
“Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink...”
– Kurt Vonnegut (via theparisreview)
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if it's good enough for the rabble, it's good...
Balzic scratched his chest, pulled his underwear loose from his crotch, and went back to his office, returning moments with the pint of bourbon. He went toward the door leading to the stairs down to the lockups. “There’s nobody down there, right?”
“Not yet,” Royer said.
“Well, I’m going to sleep down there. So don’t let anybody bring anybody...
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it's an amazing thing to ride the bus for a few...
The bus is a parade of noses and lips and eyes, and different colors and styles of hair, and different clothes, of course, all kinds of people wearing all kinds of clothes, shoes, boots, sneakers, sandals, and you can see in the way people carry themselves, you can see whether someone is having a good day or whether they’re in a hurry or just puttering along, you can even see those who...
2 tags
Linguistic attacks and Jerome Charyn
gaianauteswritings:
“My use of language is very particular and it’s something that many people can’t deal with. To me everything is in the language… My books are linguistic attacks that happen to talk about cops. I’m not interested in catching the crook. They are a shadow land where good and evil just come together and you can’t tell the difference.”
(Writer Jerome Charyn on Alex...
A New Canadian Myth for New Canadian Times by... →
sheilaheti:
“We live in a place where the official rewards aren’t so grand, but that means something else happens: Artists slide between mediums, they work on each others’ projects, and new forms emerge.”
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Feline fanciers uncover cat's secret second life,... →
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It’s a shame that there are only five authors left...
melvillehouse:
… Was there a bunker? Is that it? Was there a bunker somewhere, and these guys were all in it together? What was painted on the door, “MASTERS OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY PENILE LIT ONLY?” When do they send you the key? After your third book hits the Times DadLit bestseller rankings? Has Updike been hiding out in there this whole time? …
We mourn the death of every author in America...
“Douglas Adams wrote that no one who actually wants to be president should be...”
– Committed: What British Comic Writers Learned from Thatcher | Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book Resources This is super interesting and it makes a lot of sense (via exile-vilify)
“You may not agree with a woman, but to criticize her appearance — as opposed to...”
– Hillary Clinton (via ricebowls)
***
YES. I want to print this on business cards and hand them out.
Read WORN and wear what you want.
(via wornjournal)
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The People Who Used To Make Comics Were Not...
[Gary] GROTH: Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like your enjoyment was primarily in the drawing itself.
[Carmine] INFANTINO: Right. That’s true.
GROTH: And the story was not that relevant.
INFANTINO: I got bored with the story after a point. They were repetitive.
GROTH: You’re actually on record as saying that you never really liked superheroes that much.
INFANTINO: It’s true.
GROTH: But your reputation is largely —
INFANTINO: [Laughs.] I know, that’s what strange about it. But I was definitely not a fan. And in fact I wasn’t thrilled doing the first Flash, or the second Flash.
GROTH: It’s funny because when I interviewed Joe [Kubert], I was talking about the Our Army At War stuff that he did, and he must have done that stuff for 20 years, and I said, “Well, I guess you must have had a real affinity for World War II stuff,” and he said, “No, not really.” [Laughs.]
INFANTINO: Yeah, I know. None of us were.
GROTH: But you did it because that’s what there was to do.
INFANTINO: You got to eat! [Laughter.] It was that simple. They’d give us a script and we’d do it. The second Flash came around, because, I think Wertham had destroyed the business for a while, remember? So we were trying everything, everything. We did war stories, westerns, romance, every damn thing. But nothing was doing well. Nothing. Everything was kind of laying flat. The business was really destroyed for a time. Then I went in one day and Schwartz handed me the Flash. Julie said they were going to try the Flash — and I didn’t care, as long as it was work. Because things were bad, and we needed work.
