In 1965, researchers set out in campers to hear Americans talk. The Dictionary of American Regional English is a road trip of the mind. (Via Arts & Letters Daily.)
DARE, Hear Americans Talk
Reconstruction
Recommended Reading: On lyric essays and trauma at Ploughshares. “I didn’t start writing lyric essays until I found out I had cancer. The melanoma buried in my right cheek was at first missed, and then misdiagnosed in its severity. Clark’s stage IV, they told me. Likely in my lymph nodes, but they wouldn’t know until my third surgery, the excision and biopsy.”
Prehistoric Fairy Tales
Discovery of the Week: Fairy tales are older than previously thought. Researchers have traced stories back to prehistoric and bronze age times. For example, Beauty and the Beast and Rumplestiltskin “can be securely traced back to the emergence of the major western Indo-European subfamilies as distinct lineages between 2,500 and 6,000 years ago.” Kirsty Logan writes about the problem with fairy tales.
Prison Poetry
Over at The Paris Review, Max Nelson writes about prison literature, from John Clare to Christopher Smart.
Dear Rick…
Rick Moody offers life advice to a reader about whether or not they should end an affair. Pair with our interview with the author.
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Real Life Rosebud
Last month, we got the gossip from Orson Welles. This month, the dirt is about him. His first film, Too Much Johnson, was recently rediscovered in Italy.
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