Beyond the Multiplex Nov 7, 2009
Her human subjects range from novelist Paul Auster, who has written about his near-miss with lightning as a teenager at camp (the boy directly in front of him was killed), to a Las Vegas death-and-dying guru who says his spiritual practice was activated by a near-fatal lightning strike, to practitioners of the Afro-Cuban Santeria religion, who view lightning as an attribute of the god Shango; and to a group of Mexican villagers struggling to understand an especially cruel act of the deity, when... (Salon)
Grief, cancer, Nietzsche and Santa Nov 6, 2009
" Share: Tuesday, Nov 3, 2009 01:03 PST A spectacular new film explores the physics and metaphysics of nature's most terrifying elemental force By Alex Hermant/Zeitgeist Films A still from "Act of God" You probably don't need a movie to tell you that lightning can evoke something approaching religious terror in the most atheistic people, and can be seen as the direct work of God by the faithful. Maybe your own body told you that, the last time the hair on your neck and arms stood rigid while a... (Salon)
'Brokeback Mountain' author's papers to NY library Nov 3, 2009
"What writer would not be honored to be in the company of Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Thoreau, Saul Bellow, Nabokov, Jack Kerouac, Virginia Woolf, Marianne Moore, Paul Auster and W. H. Auden?" Proulx said in a statement released Monday by the library. "To me there is an odd sense of balance that material dealing with some of the most rural landscapes in North America will reside in our major city.". (Honolulu Advertiser)
David Carroll’s ‘Following the Water’ nominated for National Book Award Nov 1, 2009
recommends Invisible by Paul Auster (Holt): Auster proves again that as artist-as-storyteller he is a master. Set in New York, Paris, and the Caribbean from 1967 to 2007, his novel is narrated by three different voices, and Auster - like a fine painter - uses each paragraph to create color, shadow, and a vibrant texture that will stay firmly in the mind of the reader. (Boston Globe)
Suzanne Fiol Memorial November 15 Oct 24, 2009
Yoko Ono, Honorary Chair Jo Andres Paul Auster William Basinski Rhys Chatham David Grubbs Shahzad Ismaily Bob Holman Jim Jarmusch John Jesurun Charlotta Kotik Jonathan Lethem Evan Lurie John Lurie Moby Rick Moody Stephan Moore Lawrence D. Morris Julian Schnabel Elliott Sharp Mark Stewart Edwin Torres John Turturro Kate Valk Anne Waldman Hal Willner Robert Wilson. PRESS. (AbsoluteArts.com)
Movie capsule reviews Oct 9, 2009
They include the proprietor of a lightning museum in France and the novelist Paul Auster, who survived a lightning strike. Often absorbing and visually spectacular, the film has a calm, detached style that can flirt with slackness. (Boston Globe)
In ‘Act of God,’ lightning strikes a chord Oct 8, 2009
Interview subjects include the novelist Paul Auster; the guitarist Fred Frith, whose psychologist brother takes images, which we get to see, of his synapses while he plays (internal lightning, if you will); the proprietor of a lightning museum in France; and a former Marine who was clinically dead for 28 minutes after lightning struck him. As a 14-year-old at summer camp, Auster survived a light ning strike. (Boston Globe)
Brownstone Noir Sep 19, 2009
And despite being an homage to detective fiction, the HBO show does not traffic in the sort of infinite regress, in which Paul Auster and "Paul Auster" conspire to corkscrew with your head. Bored to Death makes small gestures in these directionsthe moment when a copy of an Auster novel appears is a fine piece of superficial metatextualitybut mostly the show is about self-involvement as a topic and a method. (Slate)
Leaves and pages turn in the fall books preview Sep 7, 2009
by Paul Auster (Holt). In Auster's 15th novel, an American college student meets a Frenchman - then things get dangerous. (San Francisco Chronicle -- Entertainment)
Amazon reviewers give King Lear an average rating of two stars; The 120 Days of Sodom: five stars Aug 28, 2009
Beholden to no man, cloaked in anonymity, they do not hesitate to take even the brightest stars Joyce Carol Oates, Paul Auster, Dan Brown to task. This is what makes citizen reviewers such a welcome addition to the body politic: Their courageous sniping from behind the bushes, emulating Ethan Allen and the Swamp Fox back in 1776, reaffirms that democracy functions best when you fire your musket and then run away. (Harper's Magazine)
Splash around: Great kids products for water play Aug 18, 2009
Audible, Inc. today announced the launch of a new line of audiobooks, Audible Modern Vanguard, which will bring to unabridged audio landmark fiction and nonfiction works from the 20th century by leading literary innovators such as Saul Bellow, Kurt Vonnegut, John Cheever, John Irving and Paul Auster ... Atlas talks to John Irving, Paul Auster and Bret Easton Ellis, and audible. (Fresno Bee -- Lifestyle)
Jennifer McMahon’s novel ‘Dismantled: Tell Me Your Biggest Secret...’ Jul 22, 2009
She s just joined my ever-growing list of novelists (think Paul Auster, Chuck Palahniuk) who make promises to their readers that they don t keep. Find something else for beach reading this summer. (Boston Globe)
interview with Joseph ONeill Jul 14, 2009
"), he recalls his decidedly one-sided lifelong friendship with his great subject. Unlike the real-life Ticknor, this one is an embittered also-ran, full of plans and intentions never realized, always alive to the fashionable whispers behind his back. Heti seamlessly inhabits Ticknor's fussy 19th-century diction with a feat of virtuoso ventriloquism that puts one in mind of The Remains of the Day. Heti's Ticknor would be insufferable if he weren't so funny, and in the end, the black humor brings... (Harper's Magazine)
Nadis: The family behind the Cambridge Family Y Jun 16, 2009
Where else am I going to discuss the collected works of Paul Auster, if not in the YMCA locker room. What can I say. (Cambridge Chronicle, MA)
Hot Docs filmmaker on big ideas Apr 30, 2009
On the surface, it's a film about people who have been struck by lightning, from writer Paul Auster to a CIA operative. But Baichwal's latest project - opening Toronto's Hot Docs film festival tonight and at theatres across the country tomorrow - is also a deeper exploration of what she calls "the paradox of being singled out by randomness.". (Globe and Mail)
Singled out by randomness Apr 20, 2009
While talking with novelist Michael Ondaatje, he happened to mention writer Paul Auster. Baichwal knew Auster's work, but not the fact that as a teenager, he was nearly electrocuted by lightning which killed a hiker next to him. (Globe and Mail)
An Act of God will open Hot Docs Mar 13, 2009
Focused in part on U.S. author Paul Auster, who was struck by lightning as a teenager and whose work invariably hinges on chance encounters, Act of God is Baichwal's latest feature since Manufactured Landscapes. Something about the event of being struck by lightning really is the quintessential example of being singled out by randomness, that paradox, Baichwal says. (Globe and Mail -- Entertainment)
