Disqus - Latest Comments for kgessen

Re: http://keithgessen.tumblr.com/post/603860753

Keith — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 11:49:01 -0000

Алексей, привет! Ты имеешь в виду, Аелксей который меня приютил в 1995-ом
году??

2010/12/3 Disqus <>

Re: Keith Gessen Blog - Last week the Nation published a heavy-handed...

Keith — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 15:12:45 -0000

What about the kid getting arrested, that guy is definitely named James
Wood.

Re: http://keithgessen.tumblr.com/post/907170400

Keith — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 18:43:48 -0000

Это так. По моему особенность московских пробках при Лужкове в том, что у
столице были и средства (само по себе редкость) *и* желание справиться с
пробками. Т.е. для России вполне уникальное сочетание. И при этом все равно
с ними не справились---не то что из-за глупости, а именно из идеологической
путанице. Они хотели чтоб водители делали, что хотели, и чтоб при этом
пробок не было. И это оказалось невозможно.

Re: better world books?

Keith — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 22:35:32 -0000

Thanks for this comment. I say explicitly that I'm unsure whether "Adam" is
telling the truth--in fact, looking it over, I say it twice. I also say that
everyone but Adam is full of praise for Better World Books.

The point of the post was just to suggest that it's difficult for ordinary
readers (and bloggers) to tell the difference between various online
retailers and their claims to be improving the world. Amazon has recently
gotten into the literary grant business. Does that mean Amazon is working
toward a better world?

I've never taken an IQ test, no.

Re: better world books?

Keith — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 04:39:37 -0000

Delete.

Re: http://keithgessen.tumblr.com/post/907013029

Keith — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 10:53:05 -0000

Hi, thanks for this, I'll read it. Poor Russia. Are you related to Vladimir
Paperny, author of Kultura-2, which still has not been matched?

Re: http://keithgessen.tumblr.com/post/603860753

Keith — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:03:23 -0000

Oh, you're right, I meant the YouTube caption, i.e. when you're on the
YouTube page. In short, the bridge was supposed to be open in both
directions. As you can see, no such luck. I agree, though, the music is the
thing.

Re: better world books?

Keith — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:13:11 -0000

Aha! That's exactly the trouble--they sell out of them very quickly, since
Portland is so awesome, and then they don't re-stock them. It's very
possible that this is the distributor's fault. But, yes, that's the
problem--and either way thank you very much for buying it.

Re: Khod'-or-kov-sky

Keith — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:33:58 -0000

Thank you, Miriam. Also they both end in -stan. How are things in Moscow?

Re: Khod'-or-kov-sky

Keith — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 02:01:33 -0000

Oh, wow. That would be Tajikistan. Shows how much I know about that civil
war.

Re: Khod'-or-kov-sky

Keith — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:26:57 -0000

I don't know... I keep saying it to myself my way, and it sounds great!

Re: http://keithgessen.tumblr.com/post/401396263

Keith — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:14:34 -0000

T. Mercer, that sounds to me like a fair solution, I hope it works out.
We'll be following the Amazon reviews, to make sure. --K

Re: Khod'-or-kov-sky

Keith — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:06:49 -0000

OK, but you have to write it out and we'll see what it looks like. Here's
how the Times did it, stressing the third syllable:

ko-door-KOFF-skee

Agreed or disagreed that someone following that would not in fact emit a
sound that resembles the name of Russia's most famous prisoner?

Re: Khod'-or-kov-sky

Keith — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:50:08 -0000

Why, which syllable would you stress?

Re: better world books?

Keith — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:54:47 -0000

Delete.

Re: twat

Keith — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 07:44:24 -0000

Delete.

Re: twat

Keith — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:15:43 -0000

Delete.

Re: twat

Keith — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 06:49:47 -0000

Delete.

Re: better world books?

Keith — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:55:22 -0000

Nikil, you have to learn to argue with people without saying that they smell
bad! I don't think that's what Trotsky would have done. At least not as an
opening gambit.

I'm definitely not holding up my reasons as any kind of model---I'm just
telling you what they are. I'd like *our* products--our magazines, our
storefronts, our online intermediaries--to be more attractive, more
interesting, and, yes, if possible cheaper, than theirs. (I'd also probably
feel differently about Powell's if they were more interested in our
left-wing magazine, you know?) I have trouble with the notion of indie when
it comes to bookselling. Don't you? See Ali's piece from Issue 6.

How do you feel about Better World Books?

Re: twat

Keith — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:45:35 -0000

Delete.

Re: new tumblr

Keith — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:49:24 -0000

Thank you, Rachel, that's very nice of you to say. Well, I guess we'll see.
My impulse a lot of the time is just to link to n+1 stuff anyway, because I
like so much of it, so may as well do it directly. As for this tumblr, to be
honest after I posted that Playboy cover from 1969, I thought, well, that
would be a good way to go out, at the top of my game.

Re: twat

Keith — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:56:39 -0000

Delete.

Re: n+1 + McNally Jackson Books + Recap + Video With Keith Gessen

Keith — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:13:27 -0000

Paolo, thank you for this flattering write-up. It should be said for the record that I'm not anywhere near tall.

A quick correction: The man who scoffed at the Marxism in Russia bit--I had said that I'd become more of a Marxist by listening to Russian Marxists--said that that was like coming to America to become a follower of Herbert Hoover (not FDR) (i.e., it was going to the place where that particular philosophy had most bankrupted itself). I disagreed. An interesting sidenote: The heckler turned out to be the great Richard Kostelanetz, author of The End of Intelligent Writing: Literary Politics in America, among many other books, but that one in particular is really something.

That's what it's like in New York. You get heckled by someone at a reading, and then it turns out to be a literary legend.

For more on this debate (whether a Russian ought or ought not to be a Marxist), see Kirill Medvedev in the fall 2008 Dissent: http://www.dissentmagazine....

While I'm at it: I do think what I said about the fiction in the "high glossies"--that as good as it is (and it's often very good), it ends up being segregated from the content that the magazines take more seriously. This is not really a comment on those magazines--this is where everything's going, with literature seeing as its only hope of surviving a kind of special pleading. For more on that, see this: http://www.nplusonemag.com/...

Re: Keith Gessen Blog - This is why government officials in Russia mess...

Keith — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:29:58 -0000

Delete.

Re: Keith Gessen Blog - The publication of an excerpt of *The Original of...

Keith — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:40:30 -0000

Good idea, that's right around the corner from our office. Also nice to see
that it's financed by Two Trees, the scourge of Dumbo! I guess Jacob our
landlord wasn't as interested. "Post-capitalism? What do you want with the
post-capitalism? Have you paid your rent?"