The TPR Stream - October 2012
19.10.2013
Because It’s 5 O’clock Somewhere: To Star In a Sex Novel By The Editors
As Alan Moore points out in 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom, “Sexually progressive cultures gave us literature, philosophy, civilization and the rest, while sexually restrictive cultures gave us the Dark Ages and the Holocaust.” TPR is firmly in favour of literature and civilization and decidedly against the Dark Ages and the Holocaust. Therefore, we support the erotic in and out of literature. Whatever our views are on the quality (or lack thereof) of a certain brand of so-called mummy porn currently doing obscenely well on the book charts, we like a well-written shagfest as much as the next publication. So we were saddened this week to hear of the death of Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel, star of the infamous 1974 cinematic adaptation of French novel Emmanuelle. The original film was ground-breaking for its time, not only because it introduced soft porn to mainstream cinema but the film became a symbol of the prevailing liberal attitude towards sex in the seventies (we miss you).
18.10.2012
Binders Full of Women and Battlefield Earth: Mitt Romney as a Bibliophile By The Editors
In Tuesday’s night town hall debate (or as we like to call it Mitt Romney Talks to Humans) we learned that the presidential candidate keeps binders full of women. What these binders are exactly is uncertain. Does he collect skin samples and collate these in the least creepy way possible? Or perhaps he’s figured out the technology behind Willy Wonka’s Television Room and can now actually shrink human beings leading us to believe he is in possession of a literal binder full of women. That would be amazing Mittens. And if you do actually possess such technology, why are you hiding it? It may be your only plausible plan that would actually help the American economy, instead of just shrugging and saying tax cuts. At the very least you would think that Mittens Romney sure has funny reading habits. If you thought that binders full of women was weird wait until you learn what his favorite book is. Two words. The Bible. Ok, you were expecting The Bible. After that you say? Battlefield Earth. That’s right. L. Ron Hubbard written, John Travolta starring, Scientology endorsed Battlefield Friggin’ Earth. Oh Mittens…you’d be hilarious if the thought of you at the helm of the free world wasn’t terrifying and depressing.
17.10.2012
The French, the Marquis de Sade, and the Terribleness of Fifty Shades of Grey By The Editors
Yes, we know it can be very exciting for cloistered housewives to ponder the world of shared intimacy beyond sex with the husband. After a while, missionary becomes a word used not just to describe Mitt Romney’s post-college years in France. You get too comfortable with each other. The husband starts wearing socks during coitus, and the wife just wants the whole thing to be over as soon as possible, because there are the kids and breakfast and school in the morning. Unfortunately, she gets her wish close to two minutes later. He sleeps while she stares at the ceiling and wonders at…what? Let TPR let you in on a little secret. Housewives are freaky. They’re probably thinking about Gustavo—the well-chiseled Ecuadorian pool boy who checks the chlorine level every Tuesday—and Gustavo’s imagined predilection for various whips, chains, and, ahem, clamps. Not that they don’t love their husbands or don’t appreciate the 401k and the Volvo, but housewives have fantasies too. The problem with shuttered fantasies is they come out in all the wrong ways. In the Catholic Church this manifests as pedophilia. For housewives, it’s called Fifty Shades of Grey. This is why the French are so important.
16.10.2012
The Writer’s Method: Jay-Z By The Editors
Tom Wolfe wakes up every day and writes ten, triple-spaced pages. Oscar Wilde, conversely, found virtue in indolence. Virginia Woolf wrote standing up. Truman Capote wrote lying down. Each writer has a different method. Capote is interesting because not only was he a world-class fiction writer but he was a world-class journalist as well. He pioneered what he called the “non-fiction novel” with his account of a Kansas murder in his seminal work In Cold Blood. That guy always did things his own way, including not writing down a single word of any of his interviews, which is similarly amazing and confounding. The fact that Capote could do this and still recount those interviews with nearly perfect accuracy is truly an ability which should be celebrated. What if somebody did the same thing, not with interviews, but with writing itself? Let’s say a writer composed some one thousand pieces in his head, never reaching for a pen or paper to record his or her thoughts. Impossible, right? You’d be wrong. The man lives and breathes today. His name is Shawn Carter. Perhaps you call him Jigga. Maybe you call him Hov. But everybody knows him by the name of Jay-Z.
15.10.2012
FBI Files Reveal the Real Hunter S. Thompson By The Editors
J. Edgar Hoover was a busy man. When he wasn’t occupying himself wearing women’s lingerie he liked to spy on people (probably while wearing women’s lingerie). It is because of this we know things like Eleanor Roosevelt liked to sleep with women and that John F. Kennedy liked to sleep with women. In the case of JFK, we would have known that already. We’re quite sure everybody present at the Kennedy Center for Marilyn Monroe’s rendition of Happy Birthday leaned over to their seat mate and whispered, “Those two are definitely fucking, right?” So you expect that when it was recently uncovered that the FBI had a secret file on Hunter Thompson, it would be replete with salacious details of every stench and odor. Here’s what we learned from the FBI file of the late, great Hunter Thompson. Are you ready? He liked “high-quality glossy magazines.”
12.10.2012
Because It’s 5 O’clock Somewhere: Rodney Dangerfield and Kurt Vonnegut Teach You Everything You Need to Know About Most Lit Profs By The Editors
Ah, the lit professor. How you wax so poetic on your pulpit, isolated up there in your gilded cage whilst your students below contemplate each other’s private parts and where the best place is to get hammered is on a Tuesday afternoon. Yes, it’s a peachy gig, but there’s something Bukowski said about all that. A prison with golden bars is still a prison, man. You quit growing at a certain point, trapped in the confidence of your own opinion as you usurp the free will of those unshaped minds in front of you. There’s just so much to learn about life outside of school. One becomes easily stunted each day he spends there after the age of 22. If you look at the writers you admire, chances are more of them shunned formal education than not. Literature, in the end, is about everyday humanity
11.10.2012
Contribute to Pussy Riot’s Defense Fund Through Poetry By The Editors
In one small victory for reason and good sense Yekaterina Samutsevich of the punk group collective Pussy Riot was released on Tuesday after more than six months in custody. It is only a small victory, and one that should not had to have been achieved in the first place. Samutsevich’s sisters-in-arms, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Maria Alyokhina remain in jail, foreseeably for the remainder of their original two-year sentences. Amnesty International has called for the release all members. Samustevich’s release only intensifies the urgency to release the remaining two members, both of which have small children. If you wish to contribute to their legal defense fund pick up CATCHECISM: POEMS FOR PUSSY RIOT for which our featured poet George Szirtes writes a poignant introduction.
10.10.2012
Yes, There Is a Literary Pin-up Calendar By The Editors
We at TPR accept cognitive dissonance. We think it’s healthy. We think it was Burt Reynolds who once said it is the sign of an educated to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. In that spirit, we hope to provide a platform for many differing thoughts and voices, but in a healthy way. Not in a multiple personality Sybil kind of way. It’s what The Stream is all about. That’s why on a Monday we can post a story railing against women’s historical (and current) status in the workplace and on a Wednesday we can celebrate, ahem, their particular God-given form.
09.10.2012
Charles Dickens and The Dark Knight Rises By The Editors
Hollywood ran out of ideas a long time ago, because new ideas are hard and take genuine human intuition. Sequels provide a way out of this. Studios can trade in on the goodwill of the first film, sketch a plot similar to the first, and proceed to cash in on the relationship the audience has built with the characters. After that, it’s easy. You just develop a debilitating cocaine habit while you sit back and peel off greenbacks. TPR is convinced that this is the only reason movies with the titles Saw VI and American Psycho II: All American Girl ever get green lit. It must take a massive cocaine addiction and the need to build a cash horde to fuel such a habit for these projects to ever advance beyond the fever dream come-down stage. The last thing that matters when you’re groveling in the terror of the Bolivian Flu is character development, least of all your own. That’s what makes Christopher Nolan different. No, not the lack of cocaine addiction. When Nolan wants to cash in on a sequel, he at least has the good sense to lift from Dickens.
08.10.2012
How to Train a Woman: An RCA Instructional Booklet By The Editors
In 1940's America, women were good for a lot of things. Women took care of the kids. They cleaned the house and cooked the food. Women even willingly offered their faces for domestic abuse. All these responsibilities were limited to the linoleum lined kitchen she was so fastidiously expected to attend to and keep as shiny white as the neighborhood outside. So it was a lot of responsibility when a woman happened to get a job. They just weren't prepared for it, being genitally deficient and all. Thanks to the good folks at RCA, women around the world were able to overcome this deficiency and now enjoy the right to work the same job as a man for a fraction of the pay.
05.10.2012
Conversation is a dying art form. The raconteur has been replaced by G-chat and text messaging, which is fine in a way, because it gives us the time to formulate a really pithy response and that makes us look smart. There’s a downside, too. You know the downside. It’s when you’re at a pub and everybody’s head is buried in their IPhone or Galaxy or Game Boy (do they still have these?). We at TPR thoroughly enjoy conversation. The editorial board chews the cud as much as possible and would like to think we’re better off for it. Here’s a tip. The next time you’re drinking a beer, institute a no smart phone rule at the table and be amazed by what follows. Conversation will happen. You will enjoy it. What’s even better than conversation is the amazing conversation of two literary titans, especially if those two literary titans happen to have been physically intimate. While looking for material on Raymond Carver and Tess Gallagher (next week folks if you’re lucky), through the miracle of the interwebs we came across a reading given by novelist and essayist Siri Husvedt, followed by a discussion with her husband, Paul Auster.
04.10.2012
TPR at the Movies: On the Road Hipster Redux By The Editors
In our continuing series previewing upcoming film adaptations of classic literary works, editors Anne Brechin and Shaan Joshi look at the trailer to the Walter Salles directed adaptation of On the Road. The movie stars Sam Riley as Sal Paradise and Garret Hedlund as the one and only Dean Moriarty. Few books are more iconic, especially in one’s youth. Perhaps only Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas matches On the Road in number of posters currently adorning the walls of university dorm rooms. Watching the trailer you almost expect Sal, Dean, and Marylou to bop around to MGMT instead of Dexter Gordon or the Birdman. It is appropriate, however, as the book was part of the genesis of the original hipster movement—a movement, mind you, which Kerouac openly loathed. While the book’s posterity is unquestioned, its reputation among literary critics is mixed. Time will tell if the same fate awaits the celluloid version of the Beat classic, but more importantly, why is Garret Hedlund wearing skinny jeans?
03.10.2012
No, not that kind of San Francisco steam bath, although you never know. Mark Twain was a fashion designer in a way, actually patenting “an Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments” for men that he hoped would replace suspenders altogether. That, obviously, did not happen. Consequently, you could view Mark Twain in two different ways. He is either a failed garments man or the father of modern American literature. Even if you agree with the latter statement, an article in this month’s Smithsonian Magazine claiming Twain based the Sawyer character on a friend raises the question: How much are we really responsible for our own inspiration?
02.10.2012
Arnold Schwarzenegger “Writes” A Book; Also, Justin Bieber and Mitt Romney…By The Editors
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s story is actually pretty amazing. Like many immigrants to the New World, he arrived with a dream and the will to pursue it. For instance, Schwarzenegger said that upon landing on American soil he wanted to become the most successful bodybuilding champion in history. Check. He stated that he wanted to become a mega-successful movie star. Check. Schwarzenegger even said that he wanted to marry into political royalty. Check that box as well when he married famed Kennedy progeny, Maria Shriver. What about impregnating the cleaning maid, while subsequently keeping the love child a secret from said wife and the voting public of California for whom he served as governor? Double Check.
01.10.2012
There’s not really much to say here other than Charles Manson wrote a letter to Marilyn Manson. Yes, it contains dissections of pedagogy in addition to a very in-depth discussion on free will versus determinism...no, no, wait that’s not true. We would never deliberately mislead our dear TPR readers. The letter is completely bat-shit and makes a right angle look obtuse. What else would you expect from a guy with a swastika tattooed on his forehead?
22.10.2012
The Long Odyssey of Franz Kafka's Manuscripts By The Editors
Some authors publish early and live a life in the public eye from a young age. Think Normal Mailer with The Naked and The Dead at the age of 25. Other writers take time to find the spotlight. It took Raymond Chandler 45 years to get published and that was just a short story. Other writers still are only really discovered after their death. Franz Kafka was one of these writers. He had a notoriously difficult time getting published during his lifetime. The small imprint that did publish his work failed to garner any meaningful attention. He died despondent and unknown, entrusting his literary legacy to friend Max Brod with a simple final message, “Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others' ), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread .... Yours, Franz Kafka". Brod did not burn the manuscripts. Instead, he found a way to publish the author that is so well-known and read today. But the odyssey was long. So long that it only ended last week with a decision by a Tel Aviv court.
23.10.2012
Check Out These Amazing New National Geographic Photo Book By The Editors
We’ve always liked National Geographic. It might just be the best regular publication going on in the world today. That’s why the magazine maintains global circulation numbers over 8 million in a world that is increasingly print-hostile. It’s informative. It’s thoughtful. And its focus hasn’t deviated since its inception in 1888. When print goes the way of the ice box and Jerry Sandusky’s (replace with Jimmy Saville if British) legacy our bet is that National Geographic will still be bound in physical material. You’ll still be able to take it to the restroom and turn the pages as you take those oh so sweet twenty minutes of solace away from the post-work racket of kids and dishes and cutting the lawn.
24.10.2012
Remember When We Used to Write Letters: Don’t Make John Lennon Angry (We’re Looking at You Paul McCartney) By The Editors
Ah, remember the Sixties? Heady times, no? The grass was weak but the acid was strong. It was the decade that shunned body deodorant and killed public decorum. The baby boomers traded all that for what? The suburbs and the chance to vote Reagan twenty years later. Maybe it’s why Bob Dylan told Rolling Stone, “You know, everybody makes a big deal about the Sixties…But I own the Sixties – who’s going to argue with me?… I’ll give (the Sixties) to you if you want ‘em. You can have ‘em.” Fellow Sixties luminary John Lennon was more optimistic about the ideals of the Sixties but similarly disenchanted about the result of those ideals. Maybe it all could have been different if the former cared or if the latter, well, wasn’t assassinated. Probably not. Either way, there went Lennon and before him the tumultuous decade of peace, love, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
25.10.2012
Superman Quits Print for Web Citing Media Concentration Concerns By The Editors
Clark Kent has now left the Daily Planet. Let’s be honest, that was an inept bunch of reporters over there. Seriously, glasses are all it takes to preserve a secret identity? Bin Laden could’ve shaved his beard the day after September 11th, walked into that newsroom, and applied for Jimmy Olsen’s job and nobody would’ve noticed. It’s possible Kent chose this profession because he has an instinctual adherence to the promotion of truth. Or just possibly the Man of Tomorrow knew that the best place to conceal truth is in a newsroom. The corporate and state concentration of the media around the world has led many a journalist to feel the same frustration as one Clark Kent. All of it has finally led to this day. Clark Kent has decided that the best way to promulgate his particular brand of justice is to leave behind the stalwarts of print and enter the digital age.
26.10.2012
Some might just call Wes Anderson a skilled miniaturist. Not TPR. The immersive cultures he creates within each of his films is astounding and not to mention extremely enjoyable. Whether it's Bottle Rocket or The Royal Tenanbaums his movies are whimsical but never disconnected from real human emotion. You walk away from a Wes Anderson movie feeling reaffirmed about all those ideals that your kindergarten teacher instilled in you but secretly questioned if they were ever true. So when Anderson creates an animated book short for what might be his best film to date we watch and we appreciate a true auteur at work.
27.09.2012
This Is Not a Post About Moby Dick By Shaan Joshi
The life of a sailor can be rough yet exhilarating, like any number of Brazilian port towns. I know this because a sailor tells me, and I do not mean that in an abstract way. They call him Sea Wolf or at least that’s what they call him in Czech. There are other things I know because Sea Wolf tells me. For instance, I now know that sailors are massively superstitious and are especially superstitious about dolphins. Yes, dolphins. Apparently dolphins precipitate doom. I also know that if you buy a Brazilian whore’s family groceries, she ceases be a whore. I know that because Sea Wolf calls her girlfriend now.
29.10.2012
What She Read: Marilyn Monroe’s Damn Fine Library By The Editors
Ms. Marilyn Monroe was a bit of an enigma. By all accounts she was the kind of confounding person you just couldn’t get enough of. Beautiful yet meretricious. Mercurial but at the same time kind. Yes, she was a sex symbol but there was also a real intelligence about her. So much of what made her an attractive personality is lost now. For instance, most people would be surprised to find out that Ms. Monroe possessed a keen interest in all things literary. After all, she was sleeping exclusively with Arthur Miller for several months. Even beyond that, she was a devout worshipper at the House of Books. Not only did she read damn fine books, she read a lot of them. At the time of her death her personal library included some 400 volumes.
30.10.2012
A TPR Literary Attraction: Anne Brechin on Junot Diaz By Anne Brechin
I first heard of Junot Diaz when my friend said to me sometime last year, “I have comps for the Prague Writer’s Festival tomorrow night, you want to come?” She was a journalist. I said yes. A comp is a comp and I had nothing else on. I didn’t know who was reading. I’d never heard of Junot Diaz. When I first heard his name I was sitting in the auditorium scoping out the guys in the crowd. Someone announced that the readers tonight would be such and such and Junot Diaz. I settled back. One of the guys about three seats to the right was pretty fit. I was engaged now, but I wasn’t then. You see things weren’t going so well with my boyfriend.
31.10.2012
Many people speak of the genesis of Star Wars the same way religious people do about sacred texts. It was divined to George Lucas on some rain-soaked night on Skywalker Ranch that he was not to make one film, but nine in total. Not only this, but the story, dialogue and all, had been revealed to him for the entire saga across all nine chapters in some reverie à la Kubla Khan.
