Good Old Hank, Looking Trim
It may be Thursday, but some of us around here are still recovering from seeing Hank Williams III on Tuesday. We highly recommend seeing him, and, for good measure, a review is included in today’s Flurry. His grandfather is not recognized in the Grand Ole Opry, so sign the petition to reinstate him. Now down the roll we go. The Drug Czar has accomplished nothing worthwhile, but hopefully the Arts Czar will. Don’t forget the NEA can be a source of income for all of you starving artists out there. Nabokov’s son doesn’t need a grant after selling his father’s unfinished novella to Hugh Hefner. Look for it on E! this fall… Speaking of the sex industry, Savannah Sampson wouldn’t mind a Nabokovian plot, although we’re sure Lolita’s has been covered. Porn can be misogynist but so can God, who, in turn, wishes Vassily Aksyonov eternal peace. We have a reminder that nothing in life is free. Except Dark Sky Magazine. And, in case you missed it, the original issue of the New York Review of Books. Read, then go set the woods on fire. — Andrew Geer
–After all the arguments for subordinating women have been shown to be self-serving lies, what are misogynists left with? They have only one feeble argument that is still deferred to and shown undeserving respect across the world, even by people who should know better: “God told me to. I have to treat women as lesser beings, because it is inscribed in my Holy Book.” — Misogyny and Religion in The New Statesman
Oh Heff, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.
– Hugh Hefner’s Playboy has acquired the first serial rights to The Original of Laura, the final, unfinished novella of the late Vladmir Nabokov. For years, Nabokov’s son Dmitri indicated that, per his father’s dying wishes, Laura would never see the light of day. Then last spring he had a change of heart and entrusted the super-agent Andrew Wylie to find a publisher. — Nabokov in The New York Observer
– At a hearing on Capitol Hill in May, James Moroney, the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, told Congress about negotiations he’d just had with the online retailer Amazon. The idea was to license his newspaper’s content to the Kindle, Amazon’s new electronic reader. “They want seventy per cent of the subscription revenue,” Moroney testified. “I get thirty per cent, they get seventy per cent. On top of that, they have said we get the right to republish your intellectual property to any portable device.” — Free in The New Yorker
It's Not Very Often We So Adamantly Support Uncle Sam
– In Barack Obama, the arts community believed it had found a kindred spirit — literary and urbane, a president who would restore culture to its proper national place after what many perceived as an eight-year exile under his predecessor. — Obama’s Plan for the Arts at Politico
– Vassily Aksyonov, 76, who was one of the most gifted and eminent Russian writers of a generation that emerged in the post-Stalin cultural thaw of the 1960s and who evolved into a dynamic, racy and surreal stylist, died July 6 at a clinic in Moscow after a stroke last year. — Vassily Aksyonov in the Washington Post
– The actress known as Savanna Sampson once relished preparing for a role. “I couldn’t wait to get my next script,” she said. There’s no reason to look at them anymore, she said, because her movies now call almost exclusively for action. Specifically, sex. — The Sex Film Industry in The New York Times
Shelton Hank, Stoking the Fire
– Shelton Hank Williams III terrifies most folks in his hometown of Nashville. He has alienated himself from every Music City name, including his estranged father, Randall Hank Williams Jr. Taking his cue from the legendary, hard-living grandfather he never knew, Shelton has dedicated himself to a life of alcohol, pills, powders, weed, witchy women, and fiercely honest music. — Hank Williams III in The Miami New Times
– Volume 1, Number 1 · February 1, 1963 — The First Issue of the New York Review of Books
