Gendy Alimurung

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Amiri Baraka

Gendy Alimurung
In the past, revolutionary Beat poet and black-power-movement activist Amiri Baraka wrote to shock, as evidenced by Dutchman , the play he is best known for, in which a pretty white woman sets out to seduce a reluctant young black man on the subway. There has been a resurgence of......
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The Notebook Guy

Gendy Alimurung
{mosimage} As Hollywood’s reigning “notebook guy,” Vanished series creator Josh Berman knows about werewolf disease and the usefulness of pig carcasses in determining time of death. And though he’s a television writer and not an FBI agent, he can also probably tell you everything you need to know about how......
Allen

The Collector of Experiences

Gendy Alimurung
T hey were burying people alive the first time I went to Machine Project. Someone had dug a hole in the ground, into which a coffin was lowered. A group of Austrian artists known as monochrom were putting on an event called “Experience the Experience of Being Buried Alive!” It......

Chasing Pynchon's Rainbows

Gendy Alimurung
Screw the owls. Boy wizard Harry Potter may have The Order of the Phoenix and the Dementors’ kiss, but Thomas Pynchon, who is man — all man — has Gravity’s Rainbow and the V-2 rocket. On this, the eve of the publication of Against the Day, we have gathered to......
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Melon Head

Gendy Alimurung
If people said they liked her artwork, Alix Lambert would, when she was a kid, immediately destroy the thing they had admired. Now that she is 38, destructive impulse in check, the first book documenting her artistic career comes out. Mastering the Melon documents Lambert’s wide range of “projects” over......
(Illustration by Ronald Kurniawan)

What Lies Beneath

Gendy Alimurung
When I was 17, I badly wanted to find the underground toilet graveyard. I was in college then, and it was rumored that somewhere beneath the UCLA campus was a cavern with a mountain of dead toilet bowls that had either been hurled there by students — as part of......
(Illustration by Ronald Kurniawan)

And I Said, ''What About Breakfast at Tiffany's?''

Gendy Alimurung
Bling is the sound of platinum clinking against gold, the flash of light reflecting off a million-dollar rock. It is at once everything that is wrong with the world, and everything about it that is thrilling and gorgeous. The pull of all that glitters is something that Audrey Hepburn’s Holly......
(Illustration by Ronald Kurniawan)

Best Armchair Travel for the Vacation Impaired

Gendy Alimurung
Best Armchair Travel for the Vacation Impaired Now that the age of miracles is upon us, it is possible to go everywhere without actually going anywhere at all. The creators of TurnHere.com invite viewers to sift through an extensive collection of minidocumentaries about different neighborhoods shot on digital video by......
(Illustration by Ronald Kurniawan)

Best Mall for (Actual) Rats

Gendy Alimurung
Best Mall for (Actual) Rats A hulking eight stories of pastel-painted concrete and tinted glass — 30 acres of shops, walkways, cinemas and restaurants — the mighty Beverly Center is as much landlocked ship as she is shopping mall. She is the grande dame of Southern California malls. The bustling......
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Zadie Smith, Edward P. Jones

Gendy Alimurung
Two authors — one from London, one from America — discourse separately this week on what it means to be poor and black in a world that glorifies rich and white. Zadie Smith’s first novel, White Teeth, became an international bestseller when she was just 23 years old. Now, at......