TC Month In Review: July

This month at Thought Catalog, we were definitely not on summer vacation. Tao Lin reviewed ten blogging platforms and told us about three movies he liked. For Bastille Day, Dan Hoffman did a piece on Breathless and Greer Cloots did one on ten great french films.Molly Young told us about one of her favorite books of the summer, and Brandon Scott Gorrell began to spill the beans on every drug he has ever taken. Madison Moore heralded Christopher Nolan’s Inception as one of the most narcissistic films he has ever seen. Andrew James Weatherhead saw it stoned and did not care much for it. Beryl Bainbridge died. The Russians launched a donkey into the sky. Christopher Lynsey was amused. Adam Wood certainly was not.  Bart Schaneman waxed sympathetic in his discussion of Man Men‘s Don Draper. Thought Catalog intern, Molly Oswaks, profiled five excellent pieces of Summer 2010 journalism. Jessica Miller just might have set Zach Pontz straight about the Blackwell Popular Culture and Philosophy series in her review of True Blood and Philosophy. Ben Saucier, also an intern at TC, shared with us some of the most memorable Tony Hayward quotes. The Thoughtful Reader, Franklin Bruno, Nicole Ruddick, and Shawn Vandor kept Thought Catalog thoughtful (don’t they always?) with some beautiful and important writing. Here is the Thoughtful Reader on The Glory of Angels and Selina Hastings’ biography of Somerset Maugham; Bruno on James Schuyler’s Other Flowers; Ruddick on Alix’s Journal; and Vandor on Mahmound Darwish, oh, plus his strange essay inspired by the Benet Rossell show in Barcelona.  Seventeen-year-old Jordan Castro interviewed seventeen-year-old Bebe Zeva. Jenn Pelly made her Thought Catalog debut with an extensive review of Best Coast’s latest album Crazy For You. Yevgeniya Traps also made her TC debut with a noteworthy review of Adam Langer’s The Thieves of Manhattan.

Goodbye True / Slant

Hello TC

In other TC-related news, True / Slant shut its doors after being “absorbed” by Forbes – Michael Roston has a moving goodbye piece up. Two True / Slant bloggers, Brian Donovan and Matthew Newton, joined the TC team. Perhaps more will follow.  The “the Commissioner for Trademarks” finally approved the Thought Catalog ™ request.  Tao Lin started an interesting contest to promote his upcoming book Richard Yates. He also got arrested. Noah Kalina was profiled by William Wei for Business Insider. (Noah did two exclusive photo shoots for TC: 1, 2). Liz Colville raised enough money (via Kickstater) to publish her book of essays, Cover Story. She also published a piece commemorating five years in NYC.  And the Pop Academic, Madison Moore, received his masters of philosophy from Yale. Congrats dude.