WRB—Nov. 2, 2022

All the links are quick reads today.

To do list: 

• Follow us on Twitter;

• order a tote bag or now a MUG;

• avail yourself of our world-famous classified ads, now stored on this page for non-paying readers to access, either by placing or responding to one; 

• and, 

Links:

• Granta is one of the only things we don’t have a subscption to , but this looks good from the preview anyway. [We also don’t have an Atlantic or active local Post login. —Chris]

• In aptly named Spine magazine, Tree Abraham describes the process of designing the cover of her own book: “If I was only the designer and not the author, this cover brief would have seemed easy. There is an abundance of visual and metaphorical imagery within the book to inspire highly graphic directions. But because of my intimacy with said imagery, it also posed the greatest challenge.”

• [I watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith on Friday night, which is a terrible film with a ton of fascinating cultural content. My roommate called it “Dollar store Eyes Wide Shut.” Anyway here’s this on Vulture. —Chris] What Was Brangelina? 

• Also at Vulture, Kim Hew-Low on Shirley Jackson: “If in traditional horror novels supernatural entities haunt homes, then Jackson suggests our fears be redirected toward worldly, proprietary threats that might loom in our own backyards, waiting to break in and seize the house. These aren’t demons per se, only individuals possessed by the spirit of property acquisition.”

• [A reader texted me this weekend about how different Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is from the film everyone loves. Anyway, here’s a quick Dick rundown. —Chris] “The Essential Philip K. Dick” from Molly Young in NYT.

N.B.:

• Julia Powell, R.I.P.

• ICYMI: PRH–SS deal blocked in federal court.

• This is such a fun column idea from Nick Ripatrazone.

• We would never do this. [Unless a certain books editor never gets us hard copies he promised. —Chris & Nic]

• New Hegel! [Throw out your old one. —Chris]

• Movie Enthusiasm.

• This was just so retro cool. [I’d say that about anything in Dirt to be honest. —Chris]

• There’s a new issue of The Hedgehog Review out, with the theme “Hope Itself” There’s a new issue of the LARB Quarterly with the theme “Isn’t it Uncanny?” There’s a new journal of psychoanalysis called Parapraxis, and they say: “For half a century, US psychologists and the public have largely said one thing to Sigmund Freud: drop dead. Too bad for psychologists and the public.” 

• D.C. Tunnels.

Upcoming book:

June | Applause

Dimes Square & Other Plays
by Matthew Gasda

From the publisher: The 2022 underground hit Dimes Square announced Matthew Gasda as the Chekhov of New York City’s downtown scene, the theatrical chronicler of a self-chronicling generation, as well as a young dramatist of lasting power and impressive range. Self-produced, performed in loft apartments and other nontraditional spaces, Dimes enjoyed a month’s long, sold-out run at a time when most larger, institutional theaters were still finding their footing post-pandemic. Matt’s meteoric rise over the past two years has been greeted with profiles in The New York Times, reviews in New York magazine and Spike, publication in Air Mail, mentions in Vanity Fair, and a host of blogs and podcasts where he has become the subject of heated debate. Matthew’s work has become synonymous with post-Covid literary culture, not merely in terms of coverage and the endlessly productive conversation around it but also in terms of creating a new social space populated by leading thinkers and writers. This collection contains the plays Dimes Square, Quartet, Berlin Story, and Minotaur.