Paul Muldoon raised this season’s commencement bar with his address to Bennington College’s Writing Seminar graduates. At The Russian Samovar a few months ago, before reading from Maggot, he explained the phrase “cock a snook.”
Muldoon’s Commencement Address
Sherlock Holmes at West Point
“Many students do not rate their knowledge very highly… they often doubt the possibility of mastering both pen and sword. A problem like this one, I realized not long ago, demands some special assistance. Thus, with all the earnest discretion of a Victorian lady in distress, I have appealed to none other than Mr. Sherlock Holmes.” The New Republic posts an essay on teaching Sherlock Holmes at West Point.
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“His parents were like, ‘Robert!’ / His friends were like, ‘Bob?'”
Kick off your Monday morning with this Aaron Belz poem honoring Evel Knievel, you daredevil, you.
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DFW’s Nonfiction
Leveling the kind of accusation that perhaps only such an esteemed writer can, Jonathan Franzen intimates that David Foster Wallace‘s nonfiction (such as “Shipping Out“) wasn’t exactly honest.
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Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Dies at 86
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, who served as publisher of The New York Times and as chairman and chief executive of The New York Times Company, died yesterday at the age of 86. Over at The New Yorker, you can check out an interesting round-up of recent articles they’ve done about Sulzberger and his 34-year-long tenure with the paper of record.
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a long foray in CG Omega
While writing by hand may be high risk work, the writer-typists among us face some tough decisions: what font should one employ? Do you need software to keep you from being distracted? Is it time yet for a distraction?
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Audio Conversation With Paul Harding
At Bloom this week, a spotlight on Pulitzer-Prize winner Paul Harding, whose second novel Enon has just been released. Plus a special treat: Joe Schuster speaks to Harding by phone in this two-part interview.
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It’s Not TV, It’s Jonathan Franzen.
To celebrate the official HBO adaptation of Jonathan Franzen‘s The Corrections, The New Yorker has compiled a list of “Franzen Facts.”
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