Last summer I visited the Amalfi Coast in Italy, the last leg of my first real vacation to Europe. Time didn’t seem to move in Amalfi. I did nothing but gorge myself on pizza and pasta, and roast in the sun on a different beach each afternoon. I turned five shades darker in the span of five days. I ate pistachio gelato until I was sick.
An interview with Zadie Smith recently appeared in The Guardian, and, in the title, was a quote from Smith herself: “I’ve never finished Proust or even the Brothers Karamazov.” Only in the subtitle is there any information about Smith’s responses to the multitude of dependent-clause prompts that read a little like a feedback form: The book I’m currently reading. The book I wish I’d written. The last book that made me cry. Despite the format of the interview, it still manages to provide plenty of lovely insight into the interests and reading habits of one of the world’s most famous authors.
The immersiveness of Honey Boy goes like this: You imagine playing your own father in an autobiopic. You imagine doing it so well that the audience believes you are not you, that you are your father, and a little boy with a different childhood is you. Maybe this pleases you in some way, because maybe you feel connected to your father only by exploring the pain he might have caused you.
Happy Halloween A.V. readers! And what better way is there to celebrate today, and the rest of Scorpio season, than with a good old-fashioned movie marathon, horror edition. Below are a few recent (and one or two older) films to put you into the spirit of the season.
This autumn’s special exhibition at the Fisher Rare Book Library for the autumn combines the art of photography with that of bookmaking. It features the work of Michael Torosian’s Lumiere Press, the only fine press worldwide that focuses exclusively on photography. The Fisher Library recently acquired the Lumiere Press Archives, including all twenty-two books that the press has published to date. The display celebrates both the craftsmanship of Torosian’s entirely handmade books and the art of some of the most influential photographers of the 20th century.
I like stories where “nothing happens,” because it’s not true that nothing happens.
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