AMC is streaming all the old episodes of The Prisoner. (First episode here.) It’s an excellent day for paranoids. They’re doing this to promote their remake of same, which debuts in November.
Obligatory Marvel-Disney Mash-ups!!!
FINDING NAMOR
HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIFTED YOUNSTERS MUSICAL
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MARY POPPINS
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (HANK McCOY)
THE AVENGER DUMPLING GANG
SKRULL GOOFY
THE INCREDIBLES (already a FANTASTIC FOUR rip-off)
SLEEPING MUTIE
SNOW WHITE AND THE SINISTER SIX
POWER MAN AND LION …
Now in Papervision: The Future of Literature! Plus, I Skive Off Again
Just pointers to two things that I wrote, which are not unrelated.
The first is a piece about the Hunger Games books, the first of which came out from Scholastic last fall. There was a lot of buzz about them, and I picked the first one up … and then put it down again. It was all too grim and earnest and dystopic. And frankly it was …
John Granger, Dean of Harry Potter Scholars: The Nerd World Interview
John Granger writes rigorous but accessible literary criticism about Harry Potter. He’s written four books on the subject so far, most recently Harry Potter’s Bookshelf: The Great Books Behind the Hogwarts Adventures, and he blogs at HogwartsProfessor.com. He is, basically, the scholar that I set out to become but never did.
When I …
Legend of Neil, Etc.: A Housekeeping Post
OK, I totally need to do a new post, because the last one is growing comments in this weird, tumorous way that made me think it might become sentient shortly.
So I will merely call out for you the birth of two new stars that have brightened the firmament of nerd culture. The first is a new episode of The Legend of Neil, which if you …
I Am on Day 5 Without a Cell Phone, and I Am James Bond
My phone broke the other day. And when I say it broke I mean I broke it. I had had a piece of good news, I went out and celebrated, I drank a lot. (Pro tip: if you are not James Bond, do not order a “vesper.”) Then I took a bath. My phone took a bath too.
My phone was an LG Chocolate, a model that enjoyed a brief shining …
I’m Back and I Want to Talk About Enigmo
Hey Lev Grossman, you’re a big rock star. You spend weeks on the road, cruising from juke joints to road houses to small independent bookstores, reading your work to literally dozens of listless, distracted fans. The pressure must be intense, man. How do you keep your head together?
I’ll tell you: Enigmo.
Enigmo is an iPhone game …
Dead Screenwriters Quiz
Three important screenwriters died recently. Which writer’s work will have the greatest impact on the future of movie-making?
A) Budd Schulberg (On the Waterfront)
B) John Hughes (Ferris Beuller’s Day Off)
C) Blake Snyder (Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot)
The answer, in the pattern of how these things always go, is C) Blake …
Why I’m Not Posting This Week
I’m on vacation. Sort of — I’m touring to promote my book. I thought I might be able to keep up posting while I was on the road, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. Sorry about that. I’ll be back on Monday.
p.s. just saw that there were questions in the comment thread for The Post About the Book. Answering now.
Friday Morning Non-Post: The Gentlemen Broncos Trailer
I blog this morning from Cambridge, Mass., where I am sitting in the living room of my parents’ apartment. Something about being here automatically regresses me to the emotional age of about 13. A time when there were no blogs.
As a consequence of this — and of the fact that I have to go and rock a local radio interview in about 15 …
Fun With Dopamine! Part 2
If this Slate piece is true, it’s the best explanation yet for why old media is dying—and it’s not that you dead beats don’t want to pay for it.
It turns out that our brains are wired in such a way that it’s better to look for stuff than to actually find it. Dopamine, again!
Newspapers and magazines used to provide a …
The Post About the Book
So anyway, I wrote a book called The Magicians. I’ve been trying to decide whether or not to post about it, because it seems weird to do it, and it seems weird to ignore it. But since the book is out this week, and I’m a whore for publicity, I figure I might as well do one post. What’s the worst that could happen?
I started The …
