Triple bill

I. A short film by Wong Kar-wai? YES!



(Via Ken)

II. The amazing, Sebaldian Robinson in Space, the DVD of which I've lost, is now viewable online? YES!

(Via Dennis)

III. Magic Molly (author of this new Believer piece) is in a Sleigh Bells' video...? YES!

New "Believer"

I. September Believer is out! The one and only Magic Molly (aka Molly Young) on the world of immersive retail; Geoff Dyer (!!? wow!) on Roland Barthes; Damion Searls, translator of Hans Keilson, the centenarian "genius" (F. Prose, NYTBR), on the writer's work—and how his interest in H.K. began with a mistake any bookstore wanderer can identify with ("Ingeborg Bachmann’s perfect autobiographical story ‘Youth in an Austrian Town’ mentions a movie, Romance in a Minor Key, and I misremembered the title, thinking that this book, Comedy in a Minor Key, by Hans Keilson, was it”); Jason Boog with a fascinating look at the epitome of N.Y. bohemia in the ’30s, the Raven Poetry Circle—check out this tantalizing bit:

D’Harcourt may have wooed her with his favorite topic, his unpublished novel entitled Ro Dran and the Year 90,000. He described it this way: “It is an erotic story of love. It is greater in its imaginative quality than The Arabian Nights. It is the most fantastic, most imaginative, most swiftly moving, most romantic story ever written.” D’Harcourt believed, like generations of frustrated writers both before and after his odd lifetime, that a novel could save him.

—plus your Hornby/Pendarvis/Marcus columns, reviews, a Weird Al Yankovic interview (!), some poems, a report from the Gulf, sandwiches in literature...and more...



II.

Speaking of Nick Hornby—why am I just learning about this collaboration with Ben Folds? (Which also includes Pomplamoose?!) And how great is it that N.H. is wearing a Believer T-shirt?? (A: Very!)

Are you writing a poem?

I'm reflecting on this when a Milanese banker leans in close to ask whether I need to sit down. Do I? He maneuvers me into a chair. He smells like a Ritz cracker. —Magic Molly

Today's menu

I.

Five years ago, before she became a basic-cable celebrity, I met her at the Kentucky Derby and she was wearing a T-shirt that read, “I Recycle Men.” When she explained that she had another at home that said, “Tell Your Boyfriend to Stop Calling Me,” I realized I was in the presence of a kind of greatness that could not be contained by the dairy-free cookie business Ms. Frankel was building. Since then she has developed a “Sex and the City”-like health-food and diet-book mini-empire that tells you how to lose weight by drinking margaritas. —Ginia Bellafante, NYT


II.

While pedestrians speculated on Ms. Lee's activities in the trailer, John Starks, a former shooting guard for the Knicks, posed for photos in a polo shirt adorned with the Starkist logo. "I grew up mixing tuna with mustard and tapping a little sugar into it," he told the Transom. "I always had a sweet tooth. I like tuna melts, too. It helps with the brain and the eyes." —Molly Young, NYO

III.

And so my life fell into the unvarying routine I crave and need. I would wake up, have my muesli at home, work for a bit and then go to Delectica for my elevenses. I said "unvarying" but gradually, as my eagerness to go to Delectica increased, I found it impossible to concentrate on my work because all I could think about was my doughnut and coffee, and so I started having my elevenses earlier and earlier until I ended up skipping breakfast and having my elevenses at nine. At the latest.

I went to bed at night looking forward to my nineses and then, as soon as I woke up, I stumbled out of bed, dressed and went to Delectica before I was even properly awake. Although I loved them and should have savoured them, I started gobbling my doughnut and drinking my coffee in a hurry, gobbling and slurping them down in such a frenzy that I barely tasted a thing. Before I knew it the high point of my day was over with. It was only 8.45am and there was nothing to look forward to. I also found it increasingly difficult to keep my rapture to myself.

One morning, as I gobbled my doughnut and slurped my coffee, thinking to myself, "What a fantastic doughnut, what an amazing coffee," I realised that I had not just thought this but was actually saying aloud, "What a fantastic doughnut! What a totally fantastic experience!", and that this was attracting the attention of the other customers, one of whom turned to me and said, "You like the doughnuts, huh?" —Geoff Dyer, Guardian

Reminders

"He reminds us by what he is doing every day that New York is place where you can choose to be bored but don't have to be": L.A. Times on Every Person in New York artist Jason Polan (who drew me!).

Magic Molly on weather: "It’s crucial not to count your chickens when the temperature hits 60º in early March. There is always one last snow storm."

Contemplation

Once again I contemplate shuttering the blog and simply redirecting to Magic Molly. And it sounds like Good Jobbb is thinking similar thoughts:

Sometimes I find myself mentally making epigrammatic observations about the little Nicholson Bakery pleasure-giving tabs that hang off of the good, everyday white nodules of contemporary life. Then, profound web-based solipsist that I am, I think, I’ll write a short, epigrammatic observation about this mental/contemporary phenomenon on my blog. Then I remember the presence of Magic Molly and I stop, because I know she’s taking care of it—she’s got it covered.

This would free up a lot of time. Then I could start a Twitter account!

The Original of Pistachio

"I want the kind of synaesthesia where I experience people as different flavors of ice cream." —Magic Molly

(I need a better headline.)

All or nothing

Magic Molly and the secret to enjoying Gossip Girl. (I think she's right.)