Genius! Notes on the new Believer

From Dzyd Brandon's "A Blaze in the North American Sky," in the new Believer music issue:

A little over a year ago I went to the Norwegian city of Trondheim to attend a mostly indie rock, non–heavy metal festival so I could meet Snorre Ruch, a.k.a. Blackthorn, a black-metal musician likely best known in for his connection to the murder of another black metaller, Øystein Aarseth, a.k.a. Euronymous, on August 10, 1993.

Now that's a lede!

The cover is genius (can't explain it here), the CD (masterminded by Ross Simonini) is quite different from that of previous years but also genius in its own way, there are articles that are genius, it is an embarrassment of riches (Dzyd Douglas on "A review of the only known mechanically reproduced copy of a really great record"; Ange Mlinko! Haruki Murakami?!! Dzyd Paul on music and...dentistry??), I am perhaps overusing the word genius but last night I read the Barthelme story "The Genius" and hence that is our theme today! (Two things by Rick Moody! John Adamian's notes on liner notes! Lavinia Greenlaw......interview with Fugazi dude...) MORE!

What!

Some residual New-York Ghost drama—first from Mediabistro, then from Time Out. (Levi also has a rather hilarious post.)

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Ange Mlinko has a terrific piece on Ashbery in The Nation. Her favorite title: "Yes, Dr. Grenzmer, How May I Be of Assistance to You? What! You Say the Patient Has Escaped?" (I, too, like long titles.)

Notes from the Forum on Aesthetic Diversity

From Ange at Harriet:

2. Robert Pinsky cited an early science fiction story by James Blish , “Surface Tension.” This story in which a stranded colony of space travelers use their genetic material to create tiny puppet colonies of people who live in water was, for Pinsky, “the birth of thought.”