Outer Space

Utopian visions:

1. “There does seem to be the murmurs of a cultural reckoning afoot. It can be seen in the Occupy Wall Street movement, and on a daily basis on the corner of our block, by the foot-traffic at our neighborhood grocery cooperative, or the convoy of food trucks along High Street serving everything from specialty pierogies to kimchi. The reckoning can be spied, too, in the success of small presses, in their authors’ receipt of the National Book Award, or the Pulitzer or Nobel Prizes. Operating as they do on the edge of literary culture, independent publishers are a much more nurturing environment for extraordinary voices.” – Eric Obenauf of Two Dollar Radio at the Millions
2. As observed by Anobium managing editor Benjamin Van Loon: Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, featuring confetti made of confidential police documents, was “the sound of ten thousand would-be satirists in the New York area, quitting after being one-upped by reality.”
3. “The people with whom you surround yourself affect, more than anything else in your life, the way you think and create and learn and live. This is why I published a list of my core people here on my website. It’s a head’s up to anyone who’s reading my work that these are the other brains that helped shape my ideas. This is who I’m texting and drinking and gchatting and brunching with. These are the people who make me who I am, both personally and professionally. “Network” is the unfortunately bland word most of us use to describe this lovely idea.” – Ann Friedman on her contribution to Wieden+Kennedy’s American Dreamers
4. “So that’s where the women are: having sex on the internet. We were looking for them, but we couldn’t find them in Harper’s. We saw one there from time to time — Marilynne Robinson or Francine Prose or Barbara Ehrenreich — but almost never together. Harper’s seems to publish twice as many dead men as living women. Since he died, Roberto Bolaño has had nearly as many pieces in the magazine as Smith, who is not only alive but at one point was Harper’s books columnist. (In 2006, then-editor Lewis Lapham realized he would never be able to get enough dead people into Harper’s, so he founded his own magazine, Lapham’s Quarterly: “by and for the dead.”)” – n+1 editors on women as the internet/the internet as women as the market shifts away from print
5. Curbside Splendor, the Chicago Writers’ House, and the Chicagoan ban together at the Empty Bottle on December 9, from 2 to 7pm, for a Pop-Up Book Fair! The Chicagoist lavished Anobium with love in this notice. Should you be around 1035 N. Western Avenue in Chicago with $5 (free if you RSVP!) on the designated date, put Black Friday to shame with Anobium!

ann friedman, anobium, Barbara Ehrenreich, chicago, chicago writer's house, chicagoan, curbside splendor, empty bottle, Francine Prose, harper's, lapham's quarterly, Marilynne Robinson, n+1, occupy wall street, the chicagoist, the gothamist, two dollar radio, wieden+kennedy