Side B editors and columnists recommend some of their favorite things for readers this weekend:
Online
I never thought I would admit this publicly, but I am a sports writing addict. Or, at the very least, I refresh the page at Grantland more often than I’d like to admit. Their five part coverage of Wimbledon a few weeks ago was sprawling in a way tennis hasn’t seemed since David Foster Wallace wrote tennis articles, and their Olympics coverage is equally on point. But besides the main events of the sports world, they can also be counted on for disparate social commentary–a think-piece on Amir Khan’s political power as a minority boxer lives alongside a delightful weekly round-up of the weirdest moments in the tabloids (which invariably reads like an excellent found poem and should probably be anthologized). I don’t even have television, so the only sports and celebrities I get are in the backround when I’m at a flat-screen-equipped bar, but I can’t help but devour their thoughtful, irreverent, and often hysterical brand of journalism. -Emily
This Page Turner article was only published a few days ago but has been popping up all over the blogsphere. It’s brief, powerful, and manages to explain all of the discontent I’ve felt in past nonfiction workshops.
“I like writing out of confusion, panic, a sense of everything being perilously close to collapse. So I try to embrace the fiction of all things.”
Sound familiar? It’s right on point with David Foster Wallace’s famous quote, ”Fiction’s about what it is to be a fucking human being.” -Becca
I was in London for the Olympics, and when I didn’t have tickets for live events I would watch from any screen I could find. Although I’ve only been home for 12 hours I have heard rumblings of people annoyed with Olympic coverage and commentary in the States. My recommendation isn’t a tangible but more of an urging to find a site or a screen that shows an event you know nothing about. I had live tickets for a sport I spent 11 years of my life training for, but when we sat in the pubs and live outdoor screenings we cheered for BMX, equestrian, synchronized diving. There are more than the events shown on prime time, and they are just as entertaining. -Danielle
Music
Ah. What a week. Right now my hometown is holding the 28th annual Musikfest. It’s billed as the largest free music festival in the country. (This is both true and misleading title—but this is not the time.) Regardless of how much money I wind up spending there, how angry I get when my parking spot is taken, or how many hoodlums I have to persevere: I still love going. I love everyone wandering the streets, beer mugs in hand. Don’t judge me: I love the fried food and the smell of fried food, and all the Pennsylvania you can present me. I love dancing on Main Street and even going to the big acts (where you pay, but not too much). I love all the artists set up along the river and in between the buildings still standing from the 1740s. And then there are the fireworks. I don’t know what kind of fests or fairs happen in your neck of the woods, but I love them all. This one is just mine. You should find yours at festivals.com or festivals-and-show.com and then we can wistfully discuss the similarities and differences. -Laura
