But Seriously, Folks

Give Me a F***** Break

Over at More Intelligent Life, the success of Adam Mansbach’s Go the F**k to Sleep, the massively popular children’s book for adults, is keeping writer Lee Siegel up at night. In a post called “Give Me a F***** Break,” Siegel says he’s not the only parent “tossing the book down in disgust.”

Siegel does offer an interesting (albeit, rather humorless) perspective on a book that’s been associated with big names and bigger ideas. “In a typical effusion,” Siegel says, “one writer deployed Proust and Freud on her way to extolling the book as ‘odd, rageful, beautiful,’ praising it for exposing ‘a kind of existential despair that is very particularly ours.’” Siegel says the book and its success may be a response to our competitive, failure-phobic, “tiger mother,” yuppie culture.

Perhaps the book isn’t asking to be taken so seriously, by Siegel or by its supporters? Perhaps we should all just calm down and take a nap (there’s even this artist who’ll come tuck you in). Either way, it’s a great success for Brooklyn-based indie publisher Akashic Books — which is fucking great.

Elsewhere on the Internet

Christwire.org calls Mumblecore a “snuff propaganda film that focuses on the slow physical decay of its protagonists, autistic hipsters Tao Lin and Megan Boyle.” The New York Observer reminds us that Christwire is in the business of satirical news, and “Tao Lin internet loyalists do not have to wage war on behalf of their prophet.”

No F***** Joke
However, wizard rock, brought to you by Harry Potter tribute bands, is apparently nothing to laugh about.

***

— Benjamin Samuel is the Online Editor of Electric Literature. His high school voted him “most likely to be seen at the diner.”