Archive for December, 2012
The hepatitis song
I haven’t been able to track down video for the hepatitis PSA that played on Phoenix TV stations in the 1970s. But I did find a couple cover versions, both of which include the full verse. (I only sang the chorus this morning.) Behold the powers of music as an educational tool: And here’s this […]
Read More →On Contagion
A friend of mine, Caleb Crain, wrote about Contagion for The Paris Review back when the film was released. Note the cameo appearances in his review by Defoe, Camus, and none other than Arthur Mervyn! Caleb’s more extended reading of Arthur Mervyn can be found in his book American Sympathy.
Read More →Labor without grievance
I’m reminded as I’m thinking about Zone One this week of an op-ed, written by Amy Wilentz, a UC-Irvine journalism prof, that ran in the New York Times back around Halloween. It had to do with the origins of zombies in the context of New World slavery. Some highlights: Most people think of them as […]
Read More →How to write a novel for Dummies
The wise words of Colson Whitehead, who actually is quite funny in my opinion. This makes me want to write my own novel.
Read More →Zombie time again
I posted a link to this piece from Lapham’s Quarterly earlier in the semester but portions will be newly meaningful to you this week: What A Journal of the Plague Year doesn’t have is zombies—at least not explicitly. Still, the numberless, suppurating victims are apt to behave like the undead at every turn, crowding the […]
Read More →Recreating the Zombie Apocalypse
If you want to know what it’s like to be in Mark Spitz’s shoes, try this!: Rebuild It’s a game called Rebuild, where your goal is to expand your city block by block (or zone by zone, eh?) by eliminating zombies, collecting food, and recruiting survivors each day. It seemed to fit in perfectly with […]
Read More →“I’m surviving…”
As we all are coming to the end of the semester, with that feeling of tiredness, stress and possible illness, with finals looming over us… here is a trailer of a new zombie film that looks like fun… Zombies feel love too, you know!
Read More →Judging a Book by Its Cover?
I remember one of us asked Ben about the process of book cover-making. Here is a brief interview with the designer of the Flame Alphabet book jacket. You can hear about the materials used, how it was initially planned, and how the plan was modified at last. I also found an interesting article about this […]
Read More →«Flammenalphabet» von Ben Marcus
The German book cover. Straightforward and to the point, eh? Besides, here’s one of those supposedly embarrassing earlier pieces written by Ben, quote “when I wasn’t even a human” successfully sneaked from Bryan’s twitter feed: http://biblioklept.org/2012/12/06/g-d-ben-marcus/
Read More →