Give Us A Steady Diet of Literature
Fatten up. That’s what we’re doing. We brought a tempeh concoction for lunch but instead were met with doughnuts, Christmas cookies, and lemon pound cake. Not bad. Of course, it helps when your day job involves approving loans. Do such fringe benefits make you want to quit the literary world for the world of banking? We hope not. Stick with your happiness. And stick with us. We’ve got David Mamet’s new play on NPR (spoiler alert: David Alan Grier went to Yale’s School of Drama). Next we move from the stage to the screen, where The Rumpus takes on Up In The Air. If you’re like us, and you feasted on the novel Master and Margarita, you might enjoy a new translation of The Golden Calf. But like an expanding waistline, fear lurks in the feast: The Independent covers lingual doom and the LA Times talks fairy tales, which offer a scary, delicious look into the past. [Stomach growls] – Andrew Geer
– A new play on Broadway from writer David Mamet has audience members shifting in their seats. The posters for the production feature a faceless woman — her shapely thighs are barely covered by a red sequined dress. She appears to be perched on the edge of a bed. Below that provocative picture is the play’s equally provocative title: Race. — Race in NPR.
Golden-Globes-Say-What?
– If directing is 90% casting, then just three movies into his career, Jason Reitman has mastered 90% of directing. His movies may rely too heavily on mopey indie pop songs, they may make too obvious their attempts to tug at your heartstrings, but they are always filled with good actors. And not just good actors, but the right actors for their particular parts. — Up In The Air in The Rumpus
– High up, perched among the remote hilltops of eastern Nepal, sits a shaman, resting on his haunches in long grass. He is dressed simply, in a dark waistcoat and traditional kurta tunic with a Nepalese cap sitting snugly on his head. To his left and right, two men hold recording devices several feet from his face, listening patiently to his precious words. — Endangered Languages in The Independent
Russia's Top Honor
– On the heels of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall comes a new translation of one of the most beloved and quotable Russian classics—The Golden Calf by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov. This is the first version based on the complete and uncensored original, which was first serialized in 1931, and, unlike the two very truncated incarnations that came before, finally illuminates in full comedic and insightful glory the work of the writing duo from Odessa (pen names for Ilya Faynzilberg and Evgeny Kataev), whose iconic status in Russian literature is akin to that of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in the U.S. — The Golden Calf in The Brooklyn Rail
– There’s no reliable way to score the game, but it’s at least arguable that the European fairy tale has been the source for more popular entertainments than any other narrative tradition — more than Greek tragedy, the Bible, the Arabian Nights, even the plays of Shakespeare. — Fairy Tales in The Los Angeles Times
Video: The Adoration of the Golden Calf
