weekend links: Nathan Gelgud, Jonas Lund, interactive art

Gelgud comic
Gelgud comic

Illustration of Allen Ginsburg and Walt Whitman by Nathan Gelgud. Image courtesy of Signature.

Illustrator Nathan Gelgud adapted Allen Ginsburg’s “A Supermarket in California” into a charming, wistful comic strip. Why don’t more poems appear in comic form? [Signature]

In the spirit of Gelgud’s heartwarming representation of Ginsburg and Whitman causing trouble in the supermarket, here’s a look at back at one of our favorite same-sex companionships from our youth: Frog and Toad. [The New Yorker]

Dystopian and post-apocalyptic literature has proliferated in the Middle East since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. This article will make you want to read every book mentioned. [New York Times]

Debra Brehmer’s essay on Carl Andre and interactive art covers some great themes: viewer engagement, guilt, the perpetuity of selfies. It also reminded me of Félix González-Torres’s “Untitled” (Placebo), which fields editor Sean Redmond and I had the pleasure of seeing in the Blanton Museum’s 90s art retrospective. [Hyperallergic]

Speaking of interactive art: you have only nine more days to experience artist Jonas Lund’s maddening online quiz Fair Warning. [Fair Warning]

Congratulations to The Offing, which has separated from The Los Angeles Review of Books and will be working as an independent organization from now on, and best wishes to all the new editors who will be working to help it continue on its mission. [The Offing]

Houston’s Downtown District Public Art Committee is collaborating with Weingarten Art Group to transform Main Street Square with installations, murals, and more. Why, you ask? Well, to appease a group known for their art proclivities—sports fans flocking to the city for the NCAA championships and the Super Bowl! We’ll take what we can get. [Arts + Culture Texas]

Austin-based electropop group Eyelid Kid made a creepy video in an abandoned Hyde Park Victorian home. In other words, they are living the dream. [Austin Chronicle]

—Alyssa G. Ramirez