Rachel Aviv tops "20 Top Nonfiction Writers Under 40"!

Yes, I know, the list (at the New Haven Review) is in alphabetical order, but still! (Hold onto your hats—R.A. could qualify for the top 20 under thirty.) Here are some Avivian Blvr. pieces.

The list also includes Ta-Nehisi Coates, Josh Glenn who turned 42 yesterday, Lindy West (whom I started reading this year, hilarious), Brendan Koerner, and many authors who have written for The Believer, some of whom I've edited: Tom Bissell, Eula Biss, Chuck Bissterman I mean Chuck Klosterman, Joshua "Witz" Cohen, John D'Agata, Touré...Gideon Lewis-Kraus...I am probably missing some...

...the writer behind the list, NHR editor Mark Oppenheimer, is also a Believer contributor—check out his great piece on Evan Connell from 2005.

Songs are about songs

The weirdest (yet more predictable) aspect of Chinese Democracy is the way 60 percent of the lyrics seem to actively comment on the process of making the album itself.

—Chuck Klosterman, The Onion

Three times in one week = trend

I came across these three mentions last week:

1. As he sat on the bed, I stayed in the doorway and pointed. "I read that." The book was Atlas Shrugged.
"It's interesting, but it's way too long," he said.
"Yeah, I wouldn't say it was my favorite."
—Curtis Sittenfeld, American Wife

2. "A utopia is a perfect civilization, which generally means there isn't a government to interfere with the lives of its citizens. This, of course, is an impossible dream. There is, however, an extremely long book called Atlas Shrugged that's about what would happen if all of the most brilliant individuals in the world separated themselves frm the flotsam and jetsam of society and built a utopia. Rebecca, you should read this book. You'd probably relate to it, especially if you're interested in trains."
—Chuck Klosterman, Downtown Owl

3. "Have you read her? Rand, Atlas Shrugged. That's the one...Take $1.99 out of that $2,500 and buy yourself a copy."
—Mad Men (season 1, ep. 9)

Last week

A scene from the Brooklyn Book Festival:


(From L to R: Laura Sinagra, moi, Chuck Klosterman, Charles Bock)

(Via Keenduck's Flickr)


While we're at it: This is from Rocketlass—hungry yet?

This weekend — BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL!

This Sunday I'll be at the Brooklyn Book Festival for the second year in a row—despite not living in Brooklyn!—joining Chuck Klosterman and Charles Bock. We'll all be reading from our debut novels—CB from Beautiful Children, CK from the impending Downtown Owl, EP from that old chestnut Personal Days.

It's on Sunday, 9/14, at 5 p.m. on the Mainstage! More here.

See you there?!

And of course there are tons of other great readings/panels going on...

I hope the weather holds up....

I hope someone doesn't climb onstage and pat my head like last year.



Scene from last year's BBF: Chuck Klosterman, Rob Sheffield, and me. (I?)(Me.)("EP.")

It's like Brooklyn when they hold panels outdoors

Chuck Klosterman makes a controversial statement about the Eagles, as Rob Sheffield and the guy from The Dizzies prepare their responses—Brooklyn Book Festival, 2007.

Not pictured: Mysterious head-patting woman.

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Speaking of Brooklyn—I'll be making another visit to that fair borough for an exciting event in February—more details soon!

Dizzies Newsfeeds™ for Thursday, September 19

Quotables™: Chuck Klosterman at the Brooklyn Book Festival: "Even with something you absolutely love, if you think about it long enough, you can make it seem horrible."...At the galleries: Duncan Hannah at James Graham (1014 Madison) through 10/7, featuring this delightful scene:



Here's what the young F. Scott Fitzgerald's Buffalo home looks like today (photo from Dizzies team member Arlo):



Haven't read yet: A nicely obsessive Philip K. Dick blog, plus an interview with Jonathan Lethem on PKD...Significant misreading: "Meat" for "meta"...(via BoingBoing, which seems to have a lot of book-related things today.)

The year 1988 was kind of a blur for me

Hot of the presses—in the Times, Dizzies Team Member Hua (has the blog stopped?!) listens to Top Shelf 8/8/88, a hip-hop CD of dubious provenance.

Afrika Baby Bam of the Jungle Brothers, who contributed the track “Back in the Jungle,” which he said was recorded in 2003, dismissed concerns about the authenticity of the project. “We still remember the culture and tradition,” he said. “How much more do you need, outside of the actual date, to make a record as authentic as you would have made on Aug. 8, 1988?”

Other Dizzies Newsfeeds™: Vocabulary via Edmund Gosse via Levi: jobation is "a lengthy and tedious rebuke"...quinduncs are "gossips or busybodies"...Levi's also got some delightful posts on Ring Lardner and Proust via Powell...Am excited for these 145 short-shorts from McSweeney's, three books by Dave Eggers, Deb Olin Unferth, and (Psychic E. singer!) Sarah Manguso....I don't play a lot of video/computer games, but this Fancy Pants adventure is simple and cheering...A new New-York Ghost is out, the nearly one-year-anniversary edition...How long will it last?!...Press release/reminder, I'll be at the Brooklyn Book Festival tomorrow—here is the official listing...it's at "Mainstage (Borough Hall Plaza)":

5:00 p.m. EVERYONE'S A (FORMER) CRITIC.
Three music and arts critics known for their humor discuss what it means to be a critic and the art of writing beyond the review. Featuring popular essayist, memoirist, critic and soon-to-be novelist Chuck Klosterman, Rolling Stone music critic and new memoirist Rob Sheffield, and Believer editor and former Village Voice editor/critic Ed Park whose comic novel Personal Days will be released in 2008.

Dizzies Press Release — Brooklyn Book Festival

Though I don't live in Brooklyn, I'll be on a panel at next Sunday's Brooklyn Book Festival, with Chuck Klosterman and Rob Sheffield! It's at 5 p.m., on the main stage at Borough Hall Plaza. (OK, I have no idea where that is...) Lots of good stuff going on—more info here....

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In other news...Restricted View on For Better or For Worse..............Does one italicize comic strip names?................Speaking of copy-editing mysteries: Molls on Pilates—or is that pilates?.............................New Psychic Envelopes single is out..........(more info here).................................Slate says no to exclamation points (via Dizzyhead Jen)...but Jenny D is on a quest to reclaim them! So am I!.............Jonathan Franzen: "It sat in a drawer for twenty years".............Jonathan Lethem: "the hapless and poignant Julian Lennon"..........Thought: My favorite humor site might actually be Cracked, when they do their musical lists........Thought: This lyric (from Cream) has always bugged me:

I told you not to wander 'round in the dark
I told you 'bout the swans, that they live in the park
Then I told you 'bout our kid, now he's married to Mabel

...........................Mabel?...This also doesn't sound so great, alas (via Dizzyhead Brent):

Across the Universe takes place in a ‘60s England and America in which there are no Beatles, only Beatles songs. Jude, a Liverpool dockworker, jumps off a steamer in America to find his father; at Princeton, he meets up with happy-go-lucky soon-to-be-dropout Max and his ethereally beautiful sister Lucy.

The Year of the Cat

Via Paper Thin Walls, a great Frog Eyes tune to download, Dizzyhead Douglas's brief appreciation of the Huxtables, and a nudge to check out The Onion's latest "Random Rules," in which Chuck Klosterman hits shuffle and comments on whatever comes up. (Interested parties could also check out Joshua Clover's iPod shuffle essay in one of the old issues of the PTSNBN.)

Lisa Loeb, "Stay"
CK: This is, of course, on the Reality Bites soundtrack. I was always a fan of Lisa Loeb, particularly because you kind of get the impression she sang every song either about or to her cats. They seem to be the driving force in most of her creative process.