Don’t listen to John Cage‘s 4’33” while you read Marjorie Perloff‘s article on the 50th anniversary of Silence. It could be a distraction.
John Cage, Silence
“Principally & Unaccountably Strange”
Murray Farish‘s debut collection, Inappropriate Behavior, includes tales of fictionalized or alternative history that incline toward the surreal. He discusses the “principally and unaccountably strange” with Evelyn Somers, who has written about his work before, at Bloom. Fancy yourself more weirdness? Head to Weird Fiction Review curated by Jeff VanderMeer, whose Southern Reach trilogy was just released in one volume.
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Speaking like Shakespeare
“What did Shakespeare’s English sound like to Shakespeare?” A father and son team are working to answer this question, recover Shakespeare’s original pronunciation and perform his plays in the new-old style, and lest this sound like a silly exercise in scholarship consider that “two-thirds of Shakespeare’s sonnets…. have rhymes that only work in [Old Pronunciation].”
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Shitty Mentor Subgenre
Is it just a kind of literary Stockholm Syndrome? This essay from Electric Literature explores why writing students idolize such horrible mentors. For more on what it means to be a mentor, here’s an essay from The Millions.
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Goodreads Recommendations
Goodreads has unveiled its new book recommendation feature. Unlike Amazon’s feature, Goodreads’ will draw data from every book you’ve read and logged, not just those you’ve purchased online.
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But I wanna have it both ways.
Alexander Nazaryan joins legions of hand wringers in this short rumination on children’s reading and e-reading. Me, I just want it both ways.
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