It looks like Soft Skull Founder Sander Hicks has opened up a bookstore/cafe. Before it was called Vox Pop, it was apparently styled “Down With the Man.”
Kelly McMasters talks with Lydia Millet, who asks, “Why not be as bold as ‘Tristram Shandy’?” I’d take that sentiment a few steps further and suggest, “Why not be as bold as the Old Testament?” After all, with all that violence and cruelty and magical realism in there…oh, never mind.
Shakespeare & Company isn’t the only bookstore going strong after 70 years. In Palo Alto, Bell’s Books continues to persevere.
In Moraga, mysterious scrapbooks containing odd newspaper clippings from 120 years ago were left on the doorstep of the local historical society. No one knows where these painstakingly collected scrapbooks came from them. But it was either leaving the scrapbooks or a baby in a basket. The owners decided at the last minute that they wanted to keep the kid, overpopulation crisis be damned.
Francis Ford Coppola’s On the Road film project has, at long last, received the green light. Because this is a loose autobiographical version, the filmed Kerouac will be about 100 pounds heavier than the real Kerouac and own a winery.
In Chicago, Steppenwolf will be featuring all new plays this season. Interestingly enough, they receive about 1,000 submissions a year. The remaining 990 or so will be staged at Slamsteppenwolf, Slumsteppenwolf and Nosteppenwolf.
The Michael Jackson trial coverage isn’t over by a long shot. There are book deals to be had. What next? A finger-painting diary from Bubbles portraying Jackson’s stress during the days leading up to the verdict?