1. A movie about John Keats? I haven’t seen it yet but I like the idea. It’s called Bright Star, it’s directed by Jane Campion, and you can see a preview here. I was starting to think we’d never hear about another classic British literary figure other than Jane Austen again.

2. The new journal Electric Literature has its own YouTube channel.

3. Richard Hell, long unhappy with the way his mostly-forgotten second Voidoids album Destiny Street turned out in 1982, has decided to completely remake the album. The new work, a powerful barrage of poetry and guitar, stands up well to Hell and the Voidoids’s signature album Blank Generation. His angry and anguished take on Bob Dylan’s “Going Going Gone” seems to encapsulate the album’s underlying mood. I like it that Hell has the courage to speak up for one of his own lost masterpieces, to let us know that we might have missed something important if we missed it (as I had) the first time. I am sad, though, to learn from a related story that great Voidoids guitarist Robert Quine died, an apparent suicide, several years ago.

4. More sequels: Yoko Ono has released a new Plastic Ono Band album, Between My Head and the Sky.

5. More sequels! I don’t know what to expect from Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3, but Blueprint and Blueprint 2 are autobiographical masterpieces, so I’m expecting a lot. A friend of LitKicks will be contributing an article on the new Jay here very shortly …

6. Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights Big City has a new cover. Same restaurant, no towers. I liked it better before.

7. Who was that girl Jack Kerouac noticed in Robert Frank’s photo?

8. My kids are probably aged out of this one by now (or maybe not) but I am still glad to hear that Lemony Snicket is coming back.

9. David Byrne on The Kindle Experience.

10. Richard Eskow on Ted Kennedy and Allen Ginsberg.

11. I’ve previously mentioned a book called Republic of Barbecue, an oral history co-authored by Carly Kocurek. The book is now out, and naturally is on twitter too. Definitely worth checking out.

12. The Centaurian, a long-running website devoted to the work of John Updike, sends a sudden farewell message.

13. Bellemeade Books, a worthwhile new blog with a classicist focus.

14. The Meaning of Tingo and the Wonder of Whiffling.