Zadie
November 20, 2008
God bless Zadie! Zadie Smith, author of White Teeth and On Beauty, has written a controversial and very necessary essay entitled “Two Paths for the Novel,” published in the New York Review of Books. She compares the lyrical realism of Joseph O’Neill’s highly-praised Netherland with the experimentalism of Tom McCarthy’s Believer Book Award-winning Remainder. I have not yet read the latter, but I agree with her general premise, that the mainstream literary culture seems to encourage only one type of novel these days: the modest, familiar, lyrical realist novel. She is very right to call for a greater diversity in literature. Without ambition, daring, and experimentation, what is the “novel”?
Sabali
November 11, 2008
Wonderful single from Amadou & Mariam off their new album Welcome to Mali. Produced by Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz fame.
via Fluokids
Beautiful
November 8, 2008
“History,” Jay-Z, off The Blueprint 3, Produced by Kanye West
