Are you there, readers? It’s me, Merritt. Did you finish Chuck Palahniuk’s Damned like a good Mixmaster Online Book Club member? Good! That’s exactly what we’d hoped for. Dilly dally no longer and get down there in the comments to discuss lying about causes of death, if you were feeling…
Stephen King made a rare appearance at the 6th Floor Museum recently, touting his new novel, 11/22/63, which was nominated last week for an annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award by the Literary Review. We understand that bad sex might not be the only reasonable gripe about King’s Kennedy-era thriller,…
Let’s face it, teachers, you’re just riding it out until winter break. Well, you’re in luck, because we know how to knock out — what, a week? — of lesson-planning with the annual Letters About Literature contest. Students are asked to write a conversational letter to authors who have inspired…
A few months ago, I discovered that the show of the year was coming. Not Radiohead or Wilco, or even Warbeast. This was a little different. It was something that my 5-year-old niece and her posse are totally nuts over: Pinkalicious the Musical. Excitement started building weeks ago. I’m sure…
Hey, what’s up? You been reading some crazy shit in the first half of this Chuck Palahniuk book, Damned? Yeah. Us too. Want to talk it out down there in the comments? We feel you. Head on down there. We can discuss the remote closing of curtains in Dubai, grimy…
Stephen King’s visit to the former Texas School Book Depository wasn’t morbid, the best-selling author said before Thursday night’s fund-raiser at the Majestic Theatre in downtown Dallas. Instead, he felt “a sense of predestination” while touring The Sixth Floor Museum more than three years ago. Yet his latest book, simply…
After seeing just how much you people love the Palahniuk based on the popularity of our Q&A and his packed house at the DMA, we thought we might engage you with a little interaction book club-style. So it’s gonna be his latest. It’s Halloween weekend so why not, right? Plus,…
The World Series game has been postponed so you need something new to do. Seems to us that Scott Pasfield’s one-night reception for and book signing of Gay In America at Ilume Galerie is the obvious choice. Why? Because it’s equally American as apple pie and baseball — it’s just…
So, Chuck Palahniuk races up the aisles of the Horchow Auditorium at the Dallas Museum of Art with arm-fulls of huge, inflatable brains, snapping them like Frisbees throughout the eager audience, most of whom look to be in their early- to mid-20s and many of whom are bedazzled with metal…
Because Chuck Palahniuk’s the guy who once wrote the lines, “I want to have your abortion,” and “the condom is the glass slipper of our generation,” [Fight Club, 1996], we weren’t at all certain what to expect when we sat down to talk with the prolific writer about his twelfth…
We’re back! She’s back! The ‘Pants are back! This time we’ve completed Tina Fey’s Bossypants, reading right on through the meaty Second City years, out of SNL and into Sarah Palin’s wig. Also, there was breast pumping during Entourage. What did you think of the second half? Of the whole…
“I want to share some advice from my grandmother,” author Alice Hoffman told the female-dominated audience at Tuesday night’s Arts and Letters Live at the Dallas Museum of Art, co-sponsored by the Dallas Holocaust Museum. Hoffman, wearing flats, glasses perched on her nose, reached into her bag for some papers…
For our first Bossypants assignment, we were to have read the first “half” of the book (remember, we admitted we had issues with math, and adding in the intro and all that gets so confusing). Simply put, the plan was to read right on up to “A Childhood Dream, Realized.”…
SMU students may remember C.W. Smith as the curmudgeonly creative writing prof who had permanent dibs on a particular wooden chair in Dallas Hall; others know him as the mentor and ally who helped them find their voice, or who simply told them for the first time that they were…
As an artist/writer in Dallas you feel a bit like you’re stationed at an outpost to complete a mission. You have a sense of space around your creative work, and I find that crucial.
Well lookee at those poll results up there: Tina Fey beat out The Magicians — both fictional and Penn Jillette. For the first assignment, book clubbers, we’re reading the first half of Bossypants (those who have read it say it’s a quick read). For those of you who don’t trust…
It’s time once again to vote! And we’ve got a fairly diverse selection of books here, folks. Will you succumb to the peer pressure from Anna and select Tina Fey’s well-received autobiography, Bossypants (the only title to hold over from the last poll)? Will you go with the adult fantasy…
Common wisdom holds that books are usually superior to their film versions. Satisfying the individual expectations of thousands, if not millions, of fans is a Herculean task. There are exceptions, like Francis Ford Coppola’s Oscar-winning The Godfather, penned by Mario Puzo. Or the monumental achievement by Peter Jackson, who delivered…
On Friday, Boing Boing led us to the light of the Stock Car Racing Edition of the Bible. And, as they were in the dark times, we were most grateful. No, it’s not our next Mixmaster Online Book Club selection. We were ready to have a “come to Jesus” with…
Those who remember NoViolet Bulawayo as an SMU graduate student in the mid-2000s will likely recall a talented young woman who spoke rarely and modestly. They will not be surprised to learn, however, that it is that it is often the quiet women who have the most to say. Today,…
Reading Stephen King’s IMDB profile is like scrolling a Hollywood Greatest Hits & Misses list. The speed in which Hollywood is adapting these stories is nearly becoming a parody of itself, as if Hollywood is buying King’s wild horror pitches straight from his mind. The Dark Tower series is already…
Welcome! Did you get a chance to check out our inaugural or second MOBC meetings? Did you come this time hoping Erik Larson might join in on the discussion of his book?** It’s cool. We can totally understand that. The reading assignment for this round was to finish Larson’s In…
