Making dictionaries appears to be a healthy business. It was only a few days ago that we announced the death of Dr. Worcester, of Boston, at the age of eighty-one. Walker was seventy-five when he died, and the late Noah Webster died at eighty-five. Though men of many words, they were men of few deeds, and lived free from those excitements which hasten death.
We like to hug our customers. Not literally (unless they bring a particularly huge pile of books to the counter on a particularly slow day), but with the attention we give them. And from the feedback we get they seem to love being hugged (via Bookslut).
Hard to beat the literary rockstars. Also in the New York Times: nice to see that someone else is fond of porter.
It is a universally acknowledged truth that a movie studio in possession of a good fortune must be in want of Great Books. The desire fulfills two needs: to borrow prestige and flaunt high Anglican taste (via ALDaily).
It’s hard to say what’s more unexpected: to hear Ferlinghetti invoke the mainstream or to see him take part in an event like this.
One day in the late 1950s Robert Hughes was sitting in the offices of the Observer, an Australian magazine modelled on the London Spectator for which he did drawings and occasionally a book review, when the editor burst into the room and announced, ‘I’ve just fired the art critic.’ He followed this with a question: ‘Anyone here know anything about art?’ There was silence. The editor’s eye fell on the youthful Hughes. ‘You’re the cartoonist,’ he snapped, ‘You ought to know something about art. Good. Well, now you’re the f—— art critic.’