Call me

Enter Louis Justin, the 23-year-old owner of Massacre Video, a horror micro-label he runs out of his Michigan home. An avid collector of VHS, Mr. Justin turned amateur gumshoe to track down a director he calls a legend. After hundreds of fruitless calls to Chester Turners across the country, Mr. Justin was at a Chicago video store when he asked the owners if they’d heard of “Black Devil Doll.”

—"Chester Novell Turner and 'Black Devil Doll' Are Back," NYT (11/18/13)
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Uchenna Ikonne, a Nigerian-born, Boston-based writer who runs the African music blog Comb and Razor, said he tracked down Mr. Onyeabor by phone in 2009 and reached a verbal agreement to reissue some of his work, with details to be settled during a trip Mr. Ikonne was planning to Nigeria.
—"An Elusive Mystery Man of Music," NYT (11/18/13)

Bin there, done that

Q. Did you study Philip Glass in school or discover him on your own?

A. Growing up in London, nearly all of my musical knowledge was from going to Virgin Megastore on Tottenham Court Road, and in the bargain bins, I would grab CDs. It would be a £2 Neil Young album, and I had never heard Neil Young before, and I had no context for Neil Young. The Philip Glass album, I’m pretty sure it’s called “Glassworks,” I just got that not knowing what it was and put it on and loved it. I was 15 at the time. I’ve probably listened to “The Hours” soundtrack the most. Maybe I listen too much. When I listen to songs too much, it does get to the point after years where it’s in my music. —"Inspiration Is Everywhere, Even in the Bargain Bin: Dev Hynes Releases 'Cupid Deluxe,'" NYT

Thought: Maybe it’s the remainder tables that secretly move the culture forward. Up-and-coming writers, strapped for cash and dismissive of the books that are being published and getting noticed, gravitate toward these steam tables of overlooked lit, these shallow arks of the minor. I used to work in an office near St. Mark’s Bookshop in New York, and would drop in at least once a week. Cheaper than the new releases, even than most of the literary journals, were the remainders on the table in the back, which is where I first discovered John Ashbery and James Schuyler's A Nest of Ninnies. —Ed Park, "Minor Poets, Major Works," The Poetry Foundation

Reality hunger #14

A real world with a real character.