Alizah Salario

Is there more baby chatter these days, or is my radar suddenly attuned to all things procreation? Jennifer Aniston is in some movie involving a turkey baster, Neil Patrick Harris and his partner are expecting twins, and this season’s new crop of pregnant starlets will soon be sporting baby bumps on tabloid covers and perfect post-pregnancy bodies a few months later. Then there’s this: a case for babymaking that doesn’t revolve around finding meaning in life or glamorize childbearing as a cure for the apathy of affluence.

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I went to bed reading Super Sad True Love Story, and I woke up reading Super Sad True Love Story.

I need to get ready for work, Gary Shetyngart, but instead I am still in my pajamas, curled in my bed (which is actually a couch, but that’s another story) with your book resting on my thigh.  I should not feel guilty reading for pleasure, but sometimes, like with your highly entertaining and astute yet slightly smutty new novel, I do.

Do you remember when I came into your office and asked if I could write a profile on you?  You looked bookish and professorial, and your beard was even more brillo-like in person. You gently said no, citing an already packed schedule and no clue as to the details of your calendar (your publicist handles that). I lingered momentarily, and gave you a fawn-searching-for-it-mother-in-the woods look. Maybe it expressed longing, maybe desperation, maybe it was one of deep sorrow on account of my permanent existential crisis.  But it worked, sort of. Why don’t you contact my publicist, you offered, she knows better than I do if we can carve out some time.

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This afternoon I watched base jumpers glide down from the Trump Towers from the vantage point of my nearby 18th floor office.  I looked down onto Michigan Avenue, and it was bumper to bumper for blocks. I watched taxis flip illegal u-turns on Wacker after being stuck in the same spot for five minutes.  The scene was accompanied by a soundtrack of what sounded like fake machine guns blasting. It was a city under a siege. Even it was only make-believe chaos, the drama in Chicago this weekend was most certainly real.

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I discovered the year-old Anastasia Chatzka boutique on a Saturday morning stroll through Wicker Park, and I’m thanking the gods of fashion for this frilly find. The cookie-cutter designs I see everywhere from Forever 21 to Bloomingdales are blander than rice cakes. Can’t we come up with a better image for this season of bad 80’s/90’s remakes than a Courtney Love-Rhianna hybrid?

I’m particularly sensitive to the nuances of fashion in Chicago (of all places).  I see hordes of young women wearing outfits straight off the pages of Marie Claire and Seventeen. Attention to fashion, yes, personal style, no. Absolutely nothing that distinguishes one individual from her clones/friends, all with their streaky blond highlights fresh for summer, their Mac makeup caked on thick, their assembly-line spiky heels squeezing their pedicured feet. Who are all these young women? Why do they think it’s way cooler to fit in than stand out? Read the rest of this entry »

Once again I am humbled by/jealous of someone else’s summer reading list. Doug Bruns read 27 books in 12 months (while critiquing for a literary site, of course) all of which are hefty tomes that exemplify what Robert Nozick called the unreadable – and therefore intriguing- book. That’s it. This is my I’m not going to the gym excuse for the night.  I need to catch up on my read!

Read more at The Millions:

“I am a reader first. If I were an addict, I would get high and while high, presumably, worry about where I was to get my next fix. Reading is not all that different, I think. As a reader, I am always looking over the binding thinking about the next read, in some instances, longing for it. Some books, like some highs, are better than others. But even with not-so-good books–and there where two this past year I did not see to completion–I will come back to the drug, seeking the next high. I will always be a reader. Of this I am certain.”

Chicago may have its fair share of frosted delights, but now that

Sprinkles is headed our way, sub-par imitations simply won’t do. I can attest

to  the scrumptuousness of this Beverly Hills-based bake shop – and I’m not

even a cupcake person (though my personal favorite is mocha).

Slated to open @ 50 East Walton Street July 26th. Don’t delay!

Update: Sprinkles is open, and the cupcakes are indeed as savory as I remember from my years in L.A. In short, here’s why:

1) They don’t try to be what they’re not. They aren’t couture cupcakes, nor do they pretend to be fashioned for kiddie b-day parties. They are mature, adult delights, without being snobby (yes, a dessert can be a snob)

2) They get the minimalist and modern aesthetic while being warm and welcoming. It’s all about the color palate.

3) They are sensual. Creamy, moist – okay, I’ll stop, but really, sharing a cupcake is way more romantic than grabbing a beer (suitor, take note).

The Printer’s Ball is Chicago’s biggest event for the literary inclined – this year in print and digital.

“Lots of magazines. Books. Posters. Galore.
Broadsides & busy beavers. Newspapers & weeklies.
Zines. Poetry, fiction & all that. Buttons, stickers
& more. Reading & performing, or something like it.
Red carpet. Screenings, Web things & digital
writing — electrified in general; because PRINT <3 DIGITAL .
Making, inking, stamping. Getting hands dirty.
Dancing, music, DJs. Playing. All free.”

Read a great interview with members of Chicago’s Pinter’s Ball at Knee Jerk magazine

The books range from thrillers to literary novels, but the setting is the same. Check out the top 40 novels based in the Windy City over at Chicago Magazine.

I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t read the vast majority of them, but this Sinclair classic is of course a keeper.

The last thing Jonathan Saffron Foer needs is for The New Yorker to stroke his ego.

Many of you (I’m addressing all two of you who follow my blog) know that The New Yorker is coming out with a list of the top 20 fiction writers under 40. Here are the golden boys and girls:

• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Chris Adrian
• Daniel Alarcón
• David Bezmozgis
• Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
• Joshua Ferris
• Jonathan Safran Foer
• Nell Freudenberger
• Rivka Galchen
• Nicole Krauss
• Yiyun Li
• Dinaw Mengestu
• Philipp Meyer
• C. E. Morgan
• Téa Obreht
• Z Z Packer
• Karen Russell
• Salvatore Scibona
• Gary Shteyngart
• Wells Tower

In accordance with Gawker’s stringent guidelines for complaining about the list, I’ll keep this pithy and brief.

For what it’s worth, I admire and enjoy the works of many writers on this list. Kudos to all the literary superstars, especially my potential soul mate, Gary.  But the fact that something as calibrated and crafted as a “best of” list seems oddly incongruous with the spirit of the writers chosen. This is literature, not Letterman.

When I saw the list, it felt like rushing to see my name on the cast list in high school only to realize I didn’t make the cut.  Of course, I wasn’t in the running, but lists draw lines in the sand between the good and the not up to snuff, the winners, and ostensibly, the losers. That would be me. (cue the violins and self-deprecating inner monologue).

Oh well. I still have another 11 years tighten my prose. It’s not like that novella and the countless short stories growing stale on many misplaced USB drives really mean anything to me anymore. Every other young journalism school grad seems to have a half-baked novel hidden in his or her back pocket.

Maybe I should write about how I immigrated from a communist/fascist/third world country and write a scathing, sardonic critique of Americans. Oh wait, that never happened.

“Phone sex is not so unlike being a reporter .A central challenge of success at both is keeping random strangers – horny guys, hostile hedge-fund managers – on the phone, talking to you, confessing to you, growing fond of you, resolving to talk to you again. And at all times, phone-sex operators, like reporters, are expected to remain detached, wise to “The Game,” objective-but in a way, that’s crap. It’s not easy to become beloved by strangers if not a single part of you truly yearns for that love.”

From Marueen Tkacik’s “Look at Me! A writers search for journalism in the age of branding” in this month’s print version of the Columbia Journalism Review

Well. I have always been told I’ve got the voice for it….