Sometime Millions contributor Bezalel Stern has been named a finalist in this week’s New Yorker cartoon caption contest. We think he’s got a chance at winning this thing.
A Finalist in Our Midst
A Man in Monte Carlo
It will take you longer to read this Curiosity and click through to its attached link than it would for you to simply read Anton Chekhov’s shortest-ever short story in its entirety.
●
●
Hitchens on Cancer
Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair on his cancer diagnosis: "To the dumb question 'Why me?' the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?"
Iainbanks Is Hurtling Through Space
J.L. Galache wanted to honor the recently deceased Iain Banks in a way befitting the man’s memory. So of course he named an asteroid after the author. With the help of Dr. Gareth Williams of the Minor Planet Center, Galache successfully lobbied the Committee for Small Body Nomencalture of the International Astronomical Union for Asteroid 5099 to be officially dubbed Iainbanks. (Bonus: John McIntyre honors Banks’s memory by reading through some of his best work.)
Who Reviews the Reviewers?
Our own Lydia Kiesling discusses James Wood’s literary “lodestars,” and also looks at “what is fascinating, if not exactly fun” about The Fun Stuff, the critic’s latest essay collection.
Book bits – Sherlock, the Unbearable Dave Matthews, Renaming Google Print
Stanford "will rerelease a collection of Arthur Conan Doyle's tales of Sherlock Holmes, just as they were originally printed and illustrated in The Strand Magazine."Maciej Ceglowski suggests that Milan Kundera "is the Dave Matthews of Slavic letters, a talented hack, certainly a hack who's paid his dues, but a hack nonetheless." And offers up a number of Eastern European books that young lovers might give to one another instead of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.Google Print has been renamed Google Book Search. "Why the change? Well, one factor was all the comments we got about how excited people were that Google Print would help them print out their documents, or web pages they visit -- which of course it won't."
●
●