Wednesday Linkstorm
It's Charles Bukowski's birthday tomorrow. I'm personally celebrating by losing all the money in my checking account at the track (US$70) and then moving to skid row. Too much?Hey New Hampshire kids! Joshua Cohen is reading from his book Four New Messages at River Run in Portsmouth tomorrow night. I just read that book and it's so so great. Come to the reading. It promises to be wicked cool (regional slang for "very cool").Here's an Annie Leibovitz spread for Vogue shot at Edith Wharton's old digs featuring famous actors and writers. At last! Jeffrey Eugenides in the role he was born to play: Henry James (????).P.S. What's Junot Diaz doing in this spread?Today's hate-read: some nitwit at The Millions suggests that women prefer Pride and Prejudice to On the Road (You: Ah, the old Pride and Prejudice/On the Road binary I'm always hearing about.) because "Mr. Darcy'll put a ring on it." Haha, okay sure. Here's a sample line: Until my sister showed me the matchmaking article, it had never occurred to me that the author of On the Road could be a cement divider on Lover's Lane. Straight from the Jack Keruoac School of Strained Metaphors, that. Anyway, it's rarely worth addressing this kind of retrograde men-like-this-women-like-this generalization. Besides everyone knows that On the Road is basically YA lit and saying it's your favorite book is the number one dilettante tell. So you better not even bring it up unless you're also talking about how superior Cheshire Cat is to Dude Ranch [BLINK 182 JOKE] because we are 15 and in 10th grade.Speaking of dilettantes...Paul Ryan named Ayn Rand as his favorite author. He just got back from backpacking around Europe and The Foutainhead changed his life, man. He read it on the train and when he was done with the first half he tore it off and gave it to a beautiful but distant Turkish girl. They drank absinthe and then parted ways forever.Here's a gallery of the fake books mentioned in The Royal Tenenbaums brought to life. It includes "Old Custer" by Eli Cash, which is my favorite part of that movie (see below).http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeKjKWXWZOEThe Book Review was a snooze this week, but this cheerleading book looks cool.Helen Gurley Brown, long-time editor of Cosmopolitan, died earlier this week. Cosmo's embarrassing but how can you not love a woman who was brassy as hell and dressed real trampy into her 90s? Respect.--Erin Somers