Blog
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Jem Cohen’s film “Chuck-will’s-widow”
There’s not much that could make me feel better about Gene Smith’s Sink than Jem Cohen’s short film based on it, “Chuck-will’s-widow,” and his words to introduce the film’s online premiere last week at The Paris Review Daily. The film premiered on screen at National Sawdust in Brooklyn in October. Jem’s work has influenced me for almost as…
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Gene Smith’s Sink in December Harper’s
All involved in Gene Smith’s Sink figured it would be a slow burn. 2017 isn’t the ideal year for a spare, quiet, “strange” (Luc Sante) and “unorthodox” (Nate Chinen) book incommensurate in page numbers (206) with the years of work (20) that made it possible. So we’re not surprised it took three months to get a deep…
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Poet Ross Gay: Gene Smith’s Sink is “lyric research”
A few years ago a respected writer familiar with my work urged me to coin a phrase for what I do. I asked him for a suggestion. He said, “indirect narrative.” I thought about it for a couple of years, modifying his idea and words to come up with “organic narrative,” meaning that my…
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The Paris Review and National Sawdust Celebrate Gene Smith’s Sink
Last week The Paris Review and National Sawdust threw an event for Gene Smith’s Sink at the latter’s sublime venue in Brooklyn. A better conjoining of institutions and artists (see photos below) couldn’t be imagined for this book. A number of chapters of the book were steeped in The Paris Review Daily over the past…
