Literary Makeovers!!!

LM's 2010 Back-to-School Guide!

2010-07-29T12:25:00.000-07:00

It's almost time to go back to school, and that means reading a lot of long books--or better yet, letting someone else read them and tell you about it!

Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded was first published in 1740, and it's, like, five million pages long, because people had nothing else to do in olden times. Pamela is written as a series of letters, which is called Episcopalian form.

The plot is basically this: Pamela is a servant girl whose boss wants to bang her, but she says no, because she's a Rules girl.Then he tries to rape her for a few hundred pages, and then they get married! Yay! There's nothing like a happy ending.

Next week: The Monk!

Andrew Marvell

2010-04-01T03:00:00.000-07:00

National Poetry Month is upon us! Every April, all across the land, teachers are trying to get students to read some poems and not hate them. Now you could try to imbue students with the beauty of language and the power of the written word, or you could just pick the sexy poems and only read those.

Case in point: Andrew Marvell. He was always writing about doing it! His most famous poem can be summarized like this: have sex with me right now, because what if we die tomorrow and then we would have never had sex? (I like to call this genre "high art pickup lines.") If that doesn't capture the entire point of poetry, then I don't know what does.

Before:

After:

Look, had we but world enough and time, we might do original Andrew Marvell. But Jersey Shore Marvell™ is WAY hotter, and his overt sluttiness more accurately captures the essence of his work. Now you'll have to excuse us, we've got to roll all our strength and all our sweetness up into one ball. It's gonna be hot.

Vladimir Nabokov

2010-01-13T13:58:00.000-08:00

Nabokov, what can I say? You're a pretty great writer and all, and we like you especially because you wrote about sexy things like sex and whatnot, but . . . how do I put this . . . you look like an entomologist. It's great to have a genus of butterfly named after you, but I like my butterflies in the form of lower back tattoos. That's what modern-day Lolitas are all about.

Before:

After:

Much better! All authors should be sexy and all butterflies should have sparkles on them. This is so obvious! Thank God for Literary Makeovers.

Halloween Bash: Dead Celebrity Costumes

2009-10-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

Halloween is almost here! This has been the cool year for celebrity deaths, inspiring plenty of great costume ideas!

Edgar Allan Poe

Virginia Woolf

Miguel de Cervantes

More Costumes from our Favorite Writers:

2009-10-22T09:39:00.000-07:00

Here's another sneak peek at what to expect this Halloween:

Joyce Carol Oates and Flannery O'Connor

And here's a snapshot from LM's 2008 Halloween Bash, when absolutely everyone went as Sarah Palin--how embarrassing!

John Milton, Christine de Pisan, Charles Dickens, Lao Tzu

LM's Halloween Countdown!

2009-10-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

It's October, and that means that it's almost time for our annual Halloween Bash! A few of our fabulous writers are already working on their costumes:

The Venerable Bede

Dorothy Parker

Stay tuned for more updates!

Becoming a Better Jane

2009-10-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

Literary Makeovers was first formed according to one guiding principal: that Jane Austen could use some freaking help. That's one reason we're delighted with these new books: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Because not only did Jane Austen desperately need a makeover, her work did, too! I mean, have you ever read it? We haven't. But these two books totally look like improvements. Nobody wants to read about a bunch of English people sitting around drinking tea and listening to Oasis or whatever. But when you add monsters--that's a story!

We salute the geniuses behind these spooktacular Austen makeovers. We've also come up with a few ideas of our own, using things that terrify us--just in time for Halloween!

Shakespeare's Sister Shakes It

2009-09-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

We have recently discovered that "Shakespeare's Sister" is more than just a Smiths song--it's also a famous section from Virgina Woolf's A Room of One's Own . We figure that if Shakespeare had had a sister, she would have looked something like this:

Thank goodness she's hypothetical, 'cause they didn't have Dr. 90210 back then!

Samuel Beckett: Absurdly Hot!

2009-08-25T17:32:00.000-07:00

Samuel Beckett was a playwright who worked in a style called the "Theatre of the Absurd," which is all surreal and existential and weird and stuff. He wrote that Waiting for Godot play that we didn't see (spoiler: Godot never even shows up! Ripoff!). We did see the Sesame Street version, however, and felt it expertly expressed the universal frustration of the human condition by exploring the nature of the abyss and the delineation between objective and subjective realities.

Anyway, all the existing pictures of Sammy B. are like Black Turtleneck City, ya know? I mean, he looks like a guy who'd say that every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. That is not a good look! Thank god Literary Makeovers was here to help. Behold:

Before ("I can't go on.")

After ("I'll go on!")

Well well, Samuel Beckett! I believe I do mean love when I say love (now)! Although, to his credit, he always had pretty stylin' hair.

John Keats: Bright (movie) Star

2009-05-21T14:59:00.000-07:00

John Keats was already pretty sexy, and he wrote about sexy things sometimes (but also: death). It was inevitable, therefore, that we have a movie about Keats, and so we do! Bright Star premiered at Cannes recently, and chronicles the love affair between the poet and Fanny Brawne (spoiler: it's doomed and he dies of TB like everyone else did in the 19th century). They cast two super sexy leads, of course, and Jane Campion directs the apparently dreamy, visual, and romantic film.

We like all that, and it probably jibes with Keats' poetry, but we've seen lots of movies about "passionate" love affairs, and we think Campion approached the whole thing from the wrong angle. Their real love story is totally boring (they were neighbors, they fell in love and bonded over poetry, blah blah blah). REAL love is when people try to kill each other, and then don't. I've taken the liberty of making a movie poster (like Katie's earlier Keats post!) reflecting this far superior interpretation of doomed 19th century literary love:

Shakespeare: Sexier than we thought?

2009-04-05T15:42:00.000-07:00

Shakespeare once asked, "Is this the generation of love? hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds?" The answer is, of course, "hells yes!" We need more hotness in general! Unfortunately, even after our best efforts, Shakespeare the man has never been all that hot . . . until now.

Last month, a portrait was revealed which may or may not be of William Shakespeare. Normally, we'd be like, "so what?," but the thing about this portrait is that New Shakespeare is looking pretty fly. Check it out-- the new (hotter) version is on the left, the older (uglier, balder) version on the right:

Not bad, eh? Naysayers may cite the fact that the portrait on the left could be of Sir Thomas Overbury, but we at Literary Makeovers!!! resoundingly pooh-pooh that idea. We take literary sexiness wherever we can find it. Honestly, whose sonnets would you rather read?

I feel that Sonnet 36 pretty well sums up how ugly Shakespeare feels about his hot doppelganger:

Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So shall those blots that do with me remain
Without thy help by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite,
Which though it alter not love's sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
But do not so; I love thee in such sort
As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

John Dos Passos

2009-03-15T16:28:00.000-07:00

Before:

After:

John Dos Passos wrote something called The U.S.A. Trilogy, which we were going to read because it's probably about how cool and awesome and fair and just the good ol' U.S. of A. is . . . until we found out it's actually three books meant to be read at once. That's too many books, so we listened to Born in the USA instead, because it's about America too, and it's patriotic!

Robert Louis Stevenson

2009-02-18T19:29:00.000-08:00

Before: (a.k.a. "Jekyll")

After (a.k.a. "Hyde"):

Oh my...Robert Louis Stevenson, I could be Kidnapped by you anytime!

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

2009-01-14T18:27:00.000-08:00

Before:

After:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote a lot about freedom and equality and the inherent goodness of people left in a state of nature. We assume that by "state of nature," he meant "naked," and we wholeheartedly agree with his philosophies based on this idea alone.

He's probably most famous for writing Emile, his pedagogical philosophy that addressed educating children without corrupting them. (I guess we're supposed to ignore all that stuff about the 5 illegitimate children he had sent to orphanages so he didn't have to support them. That doesn't undermine his writings at all.)

We don't read philosophy here at Literary Makeovers!!! because it's too hard and super boring. We do, however, read wikipedia pages. Apparently, one time he wrote this: "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." Oooh, Rousseau, we didn't know you were into chains! You're pretty hot after all!

Cormac McCarthy's Road To Sexiness

2009-01-08T06:29:00.000-08:00

Cormac McCarthy has apparently had some career in writing for like decades or whatever, but he was only a blip on the literary scene until his book The Road appeared on Oprah's Book Club, which is the highest honor for any author.

But we only know who he is because his books are getting made into movies!! There was No Country for Old Men, which we didn't see because it sounded like there'd be old people in it and old people aren't sexy. Don't worry, though, because now they're making The Road with Viggo Mortensen, who is ruggedly handsome and hot and very sexy so we might see that one. I don't know what it's about, but it probably centers around a fun cross-country road trip full of high jinks! I bet it's set during Spring Break!

Get ready for Hollywood, Mr. McCarthy. The "aging writer exploring human darkness and emptiness" look isn't going to cut it in Los Angeles. Go for "21st century hot cowboy" instead.

My name is Ozziemandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

2008-12-11T21:22:00.000-08:00

Shirley Jackson--Hauntingly Sexy!

2008-10-07T15:04:00.000-07:00

Shirley Jackson wrote The Haunting of Hill House, which was made into a movie starring the fabulous Catherine Zeta-Jones. But she's probably best known for "The Lottery," which was also made into a movie. Sadly, Zeta-Jones was not in that one.

LM's Favorite Scary Writers!

2008-10-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

It's October, and that means it's time to read some horror novels, or better yet, watch movies based on them! Edgar Allen Poe wrote a lot of creepy stories about tooth-stealing and cousin-marrying, but he's probably most famous for that poem he wrote for The Simpsons.

We have never personally read an entire H.P. Lovecraft story, mainly because he uses too many big words, but we've found that whenever we are talking about horror with smart people, it's useful to call things "Lovecraftian." It's like the word "ironic"--you can just use it as a synonym for "weird."

There's nothing hotter than vampires, and that's why we love Bram Stoker! He wrote Dracula, which we never got around to finishing in high school, but we've seen every movie version. Well, not the boring black and white ones, but the Winona Ryder one for sure, plus the Dracula episode of Buffy. And we're totally intoTrue Blood right now--did he write that, too?

Anyway, stay tuned for more thrills and chills from Literary Makeovers all this month!

Back to School with Literary Makeovers!!!

2008-09-19T08:30:00.000-07:00

So schools everywhere have started up again, and you students out there probably already have some tests and papers coming up. What a drag! The least sexy thing about books is reading them. So we're here to help! With our handy guides, you can still look smart without having to, you know, learn anything.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Victor Frankenstein discovers the secret of life and makes a man out of dead body parts. But people see the man as a monster, because, duh, he looks completely gross. Oh, and Igor is only in the movies; Shelley took him out when she made the book version.

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The thing you should know here is that the man isn't literally invisible, just black. Maybe the problem is people can't see him very well in the dark, we don't know.

1984 by George Orwell
1984 was awesome!! Girls Just Wanna Have Fun! Ghostbusters! Cosby and Punky Brewster, and oh yeah--MADONNA!!!!! And the shoulder pads were stupid, but the big hair was glamorous in its own way...

Ok, we have not read this book.

Richard Ford: Putting the "Dirty" in "Dirty Realism"

2008-07-14T10:50:00.000-07:00

Richard Ford is known for his novel The Sportswriter and its sequel, Independence Day. While this hand-to-chin pose definitely screams class and sophistication, we have a suggestion for a new jacket photo--with this look, maybe he can get more of his books made into Will Smith movies:

Next On Real World Poets

2008-06-10T12:11:00.001-07:00

Sylvia and HD have a few too many Cosmos and things heat up!

Later, HD complains, "Sylvia's totally taking the whole makeout thing too seriously. I mean, I only did it on a dare, because Bukowski said he didn't think we'd really do it. And now she's all like...I don't know, like it meant something. She needs to back off."

Sylvia hears about HD's dis and make everyone a snack before she tries to end it all. Says Frank, "Um...I know she's upset and everything? But that's an electric oven."

Vladimir Mayakovsky

2008-06-08T07:57:00.000-07:00

Russian Futurist poet Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a total badass, and he does a nice job recuperating the pervasive "wussy boy" image of poets. The dude started writing poetry in PRISON after he was arrested for being a political upstart and ne'er do well! And he wrote a poem called "A Cloud in Trousers," which we assume is totally racy. When we scanned it for the sexy parts we found this:

"You would not recognize me now:
a bulging bulk of sinews,
groaning,
and writhing,
What can such a clod desire?
Though a clod, many things!"

Ooooh Mayakovsky! Even though you were already pretty hot, now we know what you really looked like on the inside!
Before:

After:

<-----bulging bulk of sinews groaning and writhing

William Blake: They don't call him a "Romantic" for nothing!

2008-06-06T08:09:00.002-07:00

Most people talk about William Blake in terms of boring stuff like metaphysics and his idiosyncratic religious views and the relationship between text and image and blah blah blah. But we know what he's really all about: romance! He is a "Romantic Poet" after all, isn't he? Finding sexiness in his work isn't as easy as it should be with such a moniker, but how about that "bed of crimson joy" in "The Sick Rose"? That sounds pretty hot to me.
Before:

In his makeover, note Blake's casual yet erotic pose and faraway stare that seem to be saying, "Sure I'm Innocent, but I'm also Experienced." I'd let him show me his "dark secret love" anytime!
After:

(If I was Heaven and he was Hell...)

Happy B-Day, Shakey!

2008-04-23T11:48:00.001-07:00

It's Shakespeare's birthday! (Well, actually, it's the day he died, but we guess they celebrated things differently in olden times.) We're sure that must be like a national holiday in England or France or wherever he's from. He's totally the GOD of poetry! He wrote entire plays in that iampic pentagon or whatever you call it.This is the man who put Leonardo Dicaprio and that My So-Called Life chick in the same play! He wrote the best love stories ever written in his own writing! Without a laptop!

He also wrote some sonnets, whatever those are, and some of them were to a "fair youth," maybe one like our Leo here. We know about that because of that LFO song that goes, "When you take a sip you buzz like a hornet, Billy Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets-- New Kids On The Block had a bunch of hits, Chinese food makes me sick, and I think it's fly when girls stop by for the summer..." Remember that song? That's totally poetic, because it doesn't make sense, like all good poetry.
cheers,
EJP & KTB

I...AM...SEAMUS HEANEY!

2008-04-19T16:44:00.000-07:00

Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet who is always winning lots of awards for scribbling stuff. We haven't read much of his poetry, but awards are usually really shiny, and we like shiny things. He won like a ton for his verse translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf (which was made into a movie, so the story must be pretty good). But his translation of Beowulf is truly wonderful because it openly embraces the violent and gross. Just look at these lines chronicling Grendel's retreat after having his arm ripped off:
"hasped and hooped and hirpling with pain.../The bloodshot water wallowed and surged, /There were loathsome upthrows and overturnings /Of waves and gore and wound-slurry." Awesome!

Just Sit Right back and You'll Hear a Tale...

2008-04-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

Fact: You can sing most of Emily Dickinson's poems to the Gilligan's Island theme song. Go ahead. Try it:

Because I could not stop for Death --
He kindly stopped for me --
The Carriage held but just Ourselves --
And Immortality.

We slowly drove -- He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility --

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess -- in the Ring --
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain --
We passed the Setting Sun --

Or rather -- He passed Us --
The Dews drew quivering and chill --
For only Gossamer, my Gown --
My Tippet -- only Tulle --

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground --
The Roof was scarcely visible --
The Cornice -- in the Ground --

Since then -- 'tis Centuries -- and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity --

The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed--

Oh, sorry. We got carried away.

Thomas Wyatt's Hot Sonnet Action!

2008-04-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

Thomas Wyatt the Elder is regarded as the first poet to bring the sonnet form to England. I've always liked sonnets, because they're pretty much designed to get into someone's pants. Wyatt translated the sonnets of Petrarch, and then wrote many of his own (maybe to Anne Boleyn) like this one:

ABIDE, and abide; and better abide,
After the old proverb the happy day
And ever my Lady to me doth say,
"Let me alone, and I will provide."
I abide, and abide, and tarry the tide,
And with abiding speed well ye may.
Thus do I abide I wot alway,
N'other obtaining, nor yet denied.
Aye me! this long abiding
Seemeth to me, as who sayeth
A prolonging of a dying death,
Or a refusing of a desired thing.
Much were it better for to be plain,
Than to say, "Abide," and yet not obtain.

Whew! There's nothing like a bout of "long abiding" to give a guy some serious grief! He wrote you a SONNET for crying out lout! Have sex with him already!
Before:

(Ed. note: It has come to my attention that this is actually Thomas Wyatt the Younger, Wyatt's son, of "Wyatt's Rebellion" fame. Whatever, he's sexier.)

After:

Rumi: Making God Sexy Since 1207

2008-04-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

Rumi, according to our top Wikipedia scholars, was a 13th century Persian poet. He was also a Sufi, which is one of those mystical deals like Buddhism or Kabbalah, or any other cool celebrity religion. And his poems reveal the heart of a true party animal:

Drunks fear the police,
but the police are drunk too.

People in this town, we love them
both like different chess pieces.

Chess is boring, but the part about the police getting drunk reminds us of Superbad. Awesome movie. Anyway, here's to Rumi!

Coming to a Theater near You

2008-04-09T16:43:00.000-07:00

Who wouldn't like Keats more if he had written charming romantic comedies?

Hot Poet-on-Poet Action

2008-04-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes shared a passionate, tumultuous relationship.

Their story was made into the movie Sylvia, which was ok but could have used more nudity and a less depressing ending. So she dies and that's it? Couldn't she just get over it and maybe find someone else? Someone played by Colin Firth. And he emerges from lakes a lot. That was in something literary, right? But we digress. Anyway, we don't see why she had to lose it and stick her head in the oven and stuff. After all, her daddy thought she was fine...

--with thanks to EJP

Sharon Olds Expresses Herself

2008-04-07T04:24:00.001-07:00

Poetry also has divas. We hereby celebrate Sharon Olds, the Material Girl of poetry, complete with her scandalously provocative sexual commentary and Catholic iconography.

--EJP & KTB

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

2008-04-06T14:02:00.000-07:00

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Romantic poet of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, wrote some pretty awesome poems about lesbian vampires and the "stately pleasure-dome" (sounds hot!) of Xanadu. Some sexy facts: Coleridge was totally addicted to opium. He had a weird love / triangulated desire /menage a trois setup with William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, saying things like, "Tho we were three persons, it was but one soul" (sounds hot!). For his makeover, I thought I'd evoke a thin, waifish, but still sexy heroin addict. Also, I always thought "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" could have been a lot sexier without the ugly, boring old Albatross. A peacock is much prettier, don't you think? And it contains a dirty word!
Before:

After:

Maybe not the best photoshop job, but check out Photoshop Disasters if you want to be truly appalled.

Li Bai--Tang Dynasty Bad Boy!

2008-04-04T09:23:00.001-07:00

They just don't make poets like they used to--back in the 700's, Li Bai was China's #1 badass. Just check out this poem where he gets so wasted he doesn't know what season it is:

(The Meaning of Life Revealed) Upon Waking Up Drunk on a Spring Day
translated by Keith Holyoak

Life in this world is just a glorious dream,
So why should we sweat and toil our lives away?
Be lazy—pour yourself wine, and always stay drunk
Like me, laid out here on the porch all day
Until I woke up, and spied among the courtyard’s
Blossoming flowers one small songbird at play.
"Little friend," I inquired, "Could you kindly tell me the season?"
The wandering warbler sang on the breeze of May—
Spring already! I only could heave a sigh,
Pour some more wine, and down it without delay.
Then loudly I sang, awaiting the bright moonrise.
My song has ended—I forget what I meant to say!

Makes today's department wine-and-cheese parties seem totally lame.

Arthur "Rambo" Rimbaud

2008-04-03T11:05:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a cue from Evan's mention of Arthur Rimbaud, French Symbolist and Surrealist poet. Rimbaud was already a pretty hot piece of jailbait when he was alive and (probably) having an affair with Paul Verlaine. True to the sexification formula, Rimbaud was played by Leonardo DiCaprio in a movie about his life, with steamy results! He wrote some pretty sexy poetry on his own (in wussy French), but as we all know poetry alone isn't sexy enough. But do you know what always ups the eroticism? Guns! They're like penises that kill people! Violence is the new sexy-- just check out this much-improved Arthur Rimbaud for proof:
Before:

The Second Comeback

2008-04-02T07:28:00.000-07:00

The Second Coming

by William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre,

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Give Your Poets a Kiss!

2008-04-02T06:34:00.000-07:00

We at Literary Makeovers look forward to a better world, one in which merchandising far outweighs the actual content of a poem or the talent of a poet. Imagine it: William Carlos Williams lunchboxes! High modernist trading cards! Baudelaire action figures, complete with ennui!

Until then, we can only hope to emulate the one band that has taken rock stardom to a whole new level.

Kisses,

KTB and EJP

Clockwise from upper left: Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, and T. S. Eliot

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester

2008-04-01T18:05:00.000-07:00

Do you know what's boring? Reading poetry. Most of it is super lame and contains things like "metaphors" and "symbols" and "rhyme schemes" and other stuff that's totally hard to understand. But do you know what isn't boring? Porn! That's why when I'm forced to read poetry during National Poetry Month, I look for the smuttiest, nastiest, most disgusting verse around -- like the poetry of John Wilmot. He wrote poems with titles like "Signor Dildo" and took on such lofty subjects as premature ejaculation, getting drunk, having sex with whores, and getting drunk and prematurely ejaculating while having sex with whores! He was also super-lustful and seduced pretty much everyone he ever looked at. But the raunchy rake's sexiness was immensely improved upon when Johnny Depp played him in a movie! Sexy overload! (What was I thinking? I love poetry!)
Before:

You wouldn't kick him out of bed for giving you syphilis! (And he totally would have given you syphilis.)

National Poetry Month Is Coming!

2008-03-31T06:40:00.000-07:00

But Charles Bernstein probably won't be celebrating. Bernstein writes, "Through its 'safe poetry' free verse distribution program, the American Academy of Poetry's major initiative for National Poetry Month is to give away millions of generic 'poetry books' to random folks throughout the country. This program is intended to promote safe reading experiences and is based on ARF's founding principle that safe poetry is the best prophylactic against aesthetic experience."

Do we agree? Frankly, all this talk of prophylactics has us a little distracted. He gets all hyper about poems being accessible. We think he says some stuff about MTV, too. We like MTV. What's going on with The Hills lately? ...

We're Hot for Teacher

2008-03-04T07:34:00.001-08:00

One of Donald Barthelme's best-known short stories is "The School." We imagine it something like this:

Hot All-Girl Second Lady Action

2008-02-29T09:50:00.000-08:00

Lynne Cheney's masterpiece Sisters is, sadly, out of print. Thankfully, the full text is available from whitehouse.org (or just skip to the good parts here). We like this book a lot better than most literature-y stuff we've read. So here's our salute to the Second Lady!

That right, Kemo Sabe

2008-02-29T07:28:00.000-08:00

We thought it would be so totally cute to do Sherman Alexie and Jhumpa Lahiri together, since they're both Indians, but then we've just been told that they're actually not the same kind of Indian. Oh, well, who's going to know the difference, right?

Lorrie Moore

2008-02-29T06:57:00.000-08:00

Lorrie Moore's stories, we've been told, are brilliant. And she's already pretty cute for a writer. But we have an idea as to how she might sell more books.

George Saunders

2008-02-29T06:39:00.000-08:00

George Saunders wrote "Sea Oak," a short story about a male stripper. Don't get excited--it's not as hot as one would hope. It helps, though, to look at this new-and-improved Saunders as your read it:

Remembering how it all began

2008-02-29T06:01:00.000-08:00

In 2007 Wordsworth Editions Photoshopped a portrait of Jane Austen to make her look more appealing to readers. While the origianl portrait may have been fine for olden times, today's public is accustomed to being entertained exclusively by hot people, and Austen was so totally not pretty. It occurred to our team of hotness technicians that a lot of writers could use our help, and so Literary Makeovers was born.

Why is the work we do so important? Take a look at this picture of Dave Eggers:

Sure, he's Ok. We here at Literary Makeovers would probably do him. But try looking at that picture and then reading this story by Eggers. You're probably thinking, "All right, that was a nice story, I guess." But now look at this picture of Eggers:

See? Now you don't even need to read some story or whatever to know you appreciate Dave Eggers. That's why our work here is so crucial.

Lewis Carroll

2008-02-29T05:53:00.000-08:00

Aesop

2008-01-07T06:13:00.000-08:00

Jean de la Fontaine

2008-01-07T05:53:00.000-08:00

Literary Makeovers 2007 Halloween Bash

2007-10-29T07:52:00.000-07:00

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau

Ernest Hemingway

Harper Lee and Truman Capote

Gwendolyn Brooks and Lucille Clifton

Homer

2007-10-05T05:51:00.000-07:00

Macho Macho Theorists

2007-09-26T07:54:00.000-07:00

Frantz Fanon (Sailor), Michel Foucault (Biker), Homi Bhabha (Indian), Jacques Derrida (Construction Worker), Judith Butler (Cowboy), Louis Althusser (Cop)

--with thanks to Sarah R.

Joseph Heller

2007-08-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

Haruki Murakami

2007-08-07T18:37:00.000-07:00

Luoisa May Alcott

2007-08-07T18:28:00.001-07:00

Ray Bradbury

2007-08-07T18:06:00.000-07:00

Ayn Rand

2007-08-07T14:56:00.000-07:00

Alice Walker

2007-08-07T14:53:00.001-07:00

Denis Diderot

2007-08-07T14:21:00.000-07:00

Anne Sexton

2007-08-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

Sylvia Plath

2007-08-02T07:45:00.001-07:00

Thomas Middleton

2007-08-02T07:04:00.000-07:00

John Milton

2007-08-02T06:46:00.000-07:00

Shirley Jackson

2007-08-01T05:45:00.000-07:00

Albert Camus

2007-08-01T04:27:00.000-07:00

Camille Paglia

2007-07-31T13:30:00.000-07:00

John Donne

2007-07-31T12:56:00.000-07:00

Eudora Welty

2007-07-31T12:41:00.000-07:00

Ralph Ellison

2007-07-31T12:39:00.000-07:00

Mary Wollstonecraft

2007-07-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

Zora Neal Hurston

2007-07-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

Mark Twain

2007-07-30T13:55:00.001-07:00

Literary Makeovers Salutes Miramax Films!

2007-07-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

Finally, our message is getting out--people all over the world are understanding the need to de-uglify our greatest writers! Check out Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen in the upcoming film Becoming Jane. It's a vast improvement over the real life Austen, who was so not cute. Still, as usual, Hollywood just doesn't go far enough. Our Jane is still the best.

Henry James

2007-07-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

Jacques Derrida--So Foxy He Should Be Twins

2007-07-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

We're Back!

2007-07-12T16:23:00.000-07:00

Left to right: Mary Wollstonecraft, Fanny Burney, Phillis Wheatly, Hannah Adams, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Johanna Spyri

Hiatus

2007-04-24T18:19:00.000-07:00

We here at Literary Makeovers are going to be taking a vacation for a couple of months, traveling the globe, learning new beauty secrets, and staying with our mother, who does not have Photoshop on her computer. We'll be back in June. Until then, if you can think of any writers in need of our help, leave your suggestions here. And, to everyone who's asked--yes, it's too soon to do Kurt Vonnegut.

Gore Vidal

2007-04-22T15:19:00.000-07:00

Emily Brontë

2007-04-22T15:17:00.001-07:00

Honoré de Balzac

2007-04-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

Basho

2007-04-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

Madame de Lafayette

2007-04-21T18:42:00.000-07:00

Paul Éluard

2007-04-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

Italo Calvino

2007-04-21T17:58:00.000-07:00

Kate Chopin

2007-04-21T17:46:00.000-07:00

George Eliot

2007-04-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

Harriet Beecher Stowe

2007-04-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

Aeschylus

2007-04-19T08:03:00.000-07:00

Christine de Pisan

2007-04-19T05:59:00.000-07:00

Nestor the Chronicler

2007-04-18T13:31:00.001-07:00

Anonymous

2007-04-18T13:10:00.000-07:00

François Rabelais

2007-04-18T12:52:00.000-07:00

Anne Bradstreet

2007-04-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

Miguel de Cervantes

2007-04-18T09:34:00.000-07:00

Simone de Beauvoir

2007-04-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

William Faulkner

2007-04-18T08:28:00.000-07:00

Maya Angelou

2007-04-18T07:59:00.000-07:00

Kabir

2007-04-18T07:35:00.000-07:00

Margaret Atwood

2007-04-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

2007-04-18T07:05:00.000-07:00