Strip Mall Massage, Muppety Men, and Not Watching Cloud Atlas

Ayn Rand is strictly for teenagers; President Obama said so.

I haven’t seen the Cloud Atlas movie and I probably never will, mostly because I like the book a lot and seriously doubt my abilities to really stomach Jim Sturgess in yellowface, but that’s okay ‘cause Stephen Marche’s got a handful of tips on how to talk about the movie without watching it. He seems to really dig David Mitchell’s novel, too. I hadn’t noticed it on his bookshelf, but then the man’s got 2,000 books, so if he says it’s there I definitely believe him.

Of Masters, Muppets, and/or Men.

As if in echo of Jonathan Galassi and David Kent, HuffPo asks if the self-published authors have damned the entire publishing industry: “The lesson may be that if indie authors don’t value their work, chances are no one else will either.”

It’s Friday, so why not relax with John Jeremiah Sullivan, as he gets the rub on strip mall massage parlors?