A sneak peek into the writing and art that has shaped our sensibilities.
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Jon Franklin, “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster”: The heartbreaking, riveting, Pulitzer Prize-winning story of a neurosurgeon’s exorcism of a “monster” from his patient’s brain.
Allen Ginsberg reads “Howl”: Chills.
Zadie Smith’s “Man vs. Corpse”: Death is what happens to everyone else.
“How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found” by Fin Kennedy: A play based off a self help book that details how to lose your old identity and start a new one. Also includes: a nasty cocaine habit and the New York subway system’s lost-and-found.
“Sweet Smell of Success” by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets: A strong contender for the greatest screenplay ever written. Blistering film noir from 1957 with dialogue that simply explodes off the page.
Roger Ebert on “The Tree of Life”: A movie he loved.
Roger Ebert on “North”: A movie he hated.
A scene from “The West Wing”: “Schubert was crazy, y’know? … Do you think you have to be crazy to create something powerful?”
Othello: Shakespeare was a pretty good writer.
Lester Bangs on “Astral Weeks”: The most famous rock review ever?
Action Bronson myspace interview: “You know how I come up with raps? I look through the Skymall magazine, then I do drugs and just think of crazy things.”
Justin Torres reads from ‘We The Animals’: Former Stegner Fellow reads the first chapter of the book that made him famous.
Denis Johnson - “Car Crash While Hitchhiking”: drugs x lit
Miles Davis — “Bitches Brew”: do not be scared run the voodoo down
Walter Benjamin - “Protocols to the Experiments on Hashish 1927-1934”: the philosopher stoned
Langston Hughes - “Suicide’s Note”: Three lines, twelve words.
Glengarry Bob Ross (maybe only funny if you know who Bob Ross was and have seen the movie Glengarry Glen Ross): What am I painting? Fuck you, that’s what I’m painting. You know why, mister? You drive to the store to get your paint supplies in a Hyundai, I drive an $80,000 BMW. That’s what I’m painting.