TPR Is Lit - August 2012
31.08.2012
Sometimes in this life the planets align and beautiful things happen. Usually these moments bloom for an all too short time and demand us to cast out illusory fear and anticipation in order to fully experience these little blooms in the fragile instant in which they exist…well, that was until YouTube. Every Friday, we at TPR pluck one of these moments from the bushel in what we call Because It’s 5 O’clock Somewhere. Today, we present Anais Nin and Henry Miller.
30.08.2012
If You Have Free Time This Afternoon, Take a Harvard Shakespeare Course for Free By The Editors
The possibilities of the day are endless, aren’t they? You wake up every morning with the hope of impending accomplishment, breathe in that fresh, morning air, then realize you’re five minutes late to work. By the time you come home, you’re ready for what…wine and a cheese log? Save your arteries and take a free Shakespeare course instead from that institution so known for developing connoisseurs of the cheese log: Harvard University.
29.08.2012
In what will surely be the most anticipated piece of fan fiction based on the Twilight series since 50 Shades of Grey, Latin American Olive Green Sartorialists Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro are penning a book together. There is major conflict as sources report that Chavez is more of an Edward whereas Castro is clearly a Jacob.
28.08.2012
NASA Gets One Right by Naming Curiosity Landing Spot After Ray Bradbury, Immediately Erases This Goodwill by Broadcasting Will.i.am Song By The Editors
As you read this, Curiosity is slugging across the red soil of Mars. In what was a thoughtful move, NASA named the landing site after the late, great Ray Bradbury. Unfortunately, they decided to follow that up by broadcasting the new Will.i.am song from the Martian surface. If any Martians are reading this please let TPR be the first to apologize on behalf of the human race.
27.08.2012
Now From America: New Additions to New Testament, Books of O'Reilly and Hannity, Outsell All Books Written by Muslim-Loving Liberal Satanists By The Editors
“Conservative” books outsell “liberal” books. This isn’t a surprise really. The only thing worse we can think of than reading "conservative" Sean Hannity is reading "liberal" Ed Schultz. At least Hannity allows for unintended hilarity.
23.08.2012
Because It’s 5 O’clock Somewhere: Hunter Thompson and Conan O’Brien Shooting Guns in the Woods While Being Served Whiskey By a Man in a Tuxedo By The Editors
There are so many things to say but why not just let Conan say it: “I really wanted to have Hunter on but he always refused…he didn’t want to come to the studio. He finally agreed to do our show but only if it was a remote segment and I met him on a farm in Upstate New York to shoot guns and drink hard liquor…that’s what he said.”
21.08.2012
Imagine if Bukowski was alive and he quit writing stories about Henry Chinaski. Easy, right? Now imagine if a publishing house decided another author should take control of Chinaski. Weird, right? Like I just brushed my teeth and drank orange juice weird, right? That’s exactly what’s happening today as Dr. Manhattan of legendary Watchmen fame returned twenty years after the last chapter of the seminal Alan Moore graphic novel. The only problem? Moore didn’t write it.
21.08.2012
Google asked a judge Friday to throw out a class-action lawsuit accusing the company of copyright infringement for Google’s book digitization campaign. The Authors Guild accuses Google of “massive copyright infringement” in the search engine’s attempt to build the world’s largest digital book library.
19.08.2012
Three members of Russian all-female punk group Pussy Riot were found guilty in Russian court Friday. Tolokonnikova, in addition to Maria Alekhina and Ekaterina Samutsevich, were sentenced to "two years deprivation of liberty in a penal colony" for their impromptu February performance on the altar at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ Our Savior. The trio were charged with hooliganism(apparently this is a real thing outside of football) for the ninety-second performance of Mother of God, Cast Putin Out.
19.08.2012
Why Ayn Rand is About to Be All Up in The American Presidential Race By The Editors
Ayn Rand’s back in the news, and not because she’s some kind of ghoul who has reanimated herself by gorging on the stem cells of welfare babies, but because Republican vice presidential nominee for number two leader in America Paul Ryan loves her. So same thing.
19.08.2012
Too many good men die while too many James Patterson novels are sold. David Rakoff is one of those men. His appearances on Public Radio International’s much beloved This American Life catapulted him into the spotlight. The 47-year old Canadian born essayist had been publicly battling cancer for several years.
19.08.2012
Capitalism is up to it's old tricks again. The marriage between money and art has always been tricky. Sure, you can point to the Florentine patrons that allowed Leonardo all that free time to paint enigmatic smiles and engineer robotic lions for French Kings, but things like this also happen.
19.08.2012
Marie-Célie Guillaume was like anybody, anywhere. She hated her boss and was frustrated with her job. Instead of going to Facebook and bitching about it like a normal person, or enduring the quotidian until each day became more dreadful than the last eventually collapsing into the haze of a whip-its binge and a messy divorce, she wrote a novel about it. Oh, and her boss was Nicolas Sarkozy.
19.08.2012
It was an appearance fraught with tension before taping even began. Norman Mailer, fuming at a scathing review Gore Vidal had written months earlier, reportedly head-butted Vidal before the show. After the incident Vidal famously quipped, “Once again, words failed Norman Mailer.”
19.08.2012
E-books Outsell Print for First Time According to Inevitability By The Editors
For the first time in human history, e-books are outselling both hard and soft cover combined(at least on Amazon...in the UK). Amazon UK reported that for every 114 Kindle e-books downloaded only 100 physical print copies were sold.
