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The Lost Symphony
by Paul Collins
Virginius Dabney, Confederate veteran and postmodern novelist, wrote an unreadable masterpiece in 1886.
I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say
by Luc Sante
Buddy Bolden is one the most important figures in the invention of jazz. One night in 1902, he also inadvertently invented funk.
The Topography of the Familiar
by Benjamin Lytal
On Walter Abish, the avatar of literary constraints, topographical stereotypes, and that good old-fashioned German “meaty anger.”
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Funworld
by Kevin Moffett
Locked behind a shoulder restraint and a lap bar among the smileologists and ho-clowns of America’s amusement parks.
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Rose Levy Beranbaum
interviewed by Ben Marcus
The author of
The Bread Bible brings science and taste together, then bakes them—but don’t ask her husband how it tastes.
FULL TEXT
August Wilson
interviewed by Miles Marshall Lewis
The playwright discusses blues anthropology, Bill Cosby’s tirade, and growing up in a four-woman household.
David O. Russell
interviewed by Eric Spitznagel
A reformed satirist and writer and director of
I Heart Huckabees investigates consciousness, watermelon, and hypothetical advice from Hitler.
Matmos
interviewed by Daniel Handler
Scoring pornography, taste-testing ice cream, and
musique concrete on
Leno with Björk’s sometime-backup band.
