On ‘The Sugar Frosted Nutsack’ by Mark Leyner
Mark Leyner—he of writing incessantly about “Mark Leyner”—just published his first novel of the century. I wrote about it here for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Presidential Stump Speech, 2052 (for McSweeney’s)
I speechwrote a presidential stump speech from the future for McSweeney’s.
On Baudrillard and LA — GOOD 023
Jean Baudrillard’s steel-framed glasses really are perfect, no? Here’s my essay on JB and LA in the new issue of GOOD.
Assorted pieces
I wrote about my bizarre 5th grade teacher, a violent 1960s young adult novel, and a long-lost Canadian author for the January 09 issue of The Believer:
For The Believer’s January 11 issue, I thought about the sublime weirdness of the recent Kindle and iPad ereader ads. ”How are the Kindles surviving underwater?” was one thing I wondered. Also: “What’s with all the Ted Kennedy?”
I used to write a lot of book reviews for The Village Voice. Here’s one, on Jonathan Franzen’s book of essays, The Discomfort Zone, published roughly at the midpoint between The Corrections and Freedom:
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Smartypants
Last year, I wrote a weekly column for GOOD online. Here are two pieces from that group—on a movie theater on the Dardanelles that plays a loop of what’s happening outside:
A Visual Epic of Ultra-Recent History
… and on Christian Müller’s underground house in Switzerland, Villa Vals:
Finally, because everyone loves a footnoted think piece, here’s a footnoted think piece, vaguely on Nicholson Baker, Vladimir Nabokov, the San Francisco Public Library, and parking meters, from Flatmancrooked:
The Real Cost of Books, Footnoted
And you can find many more published pieces here.
