After heavy rains exacerbated a mold problem in two dorms and made some students sick, St. Mary’s College of Maryland has 240 students living aboard the Sea Voyager, a cruise ship about the length of a football field now docked at the school’s southern Maryland campus.
Maryland College Books “Cruise”
One With Others
“She was to me and so many poets an exemplary and inimitable figure. And I mean to emphasize the tension between ‘exemplary’ and ‘inimitable’—what her example taught us was the necessity of going our own way, of being one with others.” Ben Lerner remembers C.D. Wright, who passed away earlier this week.
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Curiosities
This just in! Senator Barack Obama has “palled around” with the notorious constitutionalist Richard Posner.The good folks at Hotel St. George Press interview Taryn Simon, the artist behind the brilliant Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar.Jonathan Franzen’s remembrance of David Foster Wallace is quite moving……as are the Elizabeth Bishop stanzas that conclude this sterling essay on her lifelong correspondence with Robert Lowell.Alas, the only way to offer you recollections of the late George Plimpton was to link to The Daily Beast.That long profile in Rolling Stone of DFW by David Lipsky that everyone’s been talking about is now online.Venerable fishwrap The Christian Science Monitor goes online only with its daily edition.Ten of the best circadian novels: “novels that fit all their action into a single day.”Sarah Palin and code-switchingWe may never tire of “This Is Just to Say” parodies.Our revels, not quite ended?: Royal Shakespeareans read celebrity porno dialogue (headphones recommended for those at work).Half a year late, Russia! Magazine has made its translation guide to Russian literature available online.Over at More Intelligent Life, you can find an audio interview with a Booker Prize judge.Finally, MiL‘s parent publication, The Economist makes its endorsement.
From the Archives
Recommended Listening: The Esquire podcast has a new episode featuring Jay McInerney on Raymond Carver’s “My Father’s Life,” which first appeared in the magazine in 1984.
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The Story Button
There are a lot of writers who work in advertising, and it’s starting to have an impact. People are more likely to love brands if there is a story involved, according to a new study. “We’ve known for a long time there is no ‘buy’ button in the brain. But these results show there’s a ‘story’ button,” neuroscientist Paul Zak says. Pair with: Our essay on working at a creative agency after getting your MFA.
Remembering Nora Ephron
The New York Times looks back on Nora Ephron’s career and celebrates her distinct tone. EW has collected some of the best quotes from her books. Ariel Levy recalls her first encounter with Ephron’s “funny, frank, self-effacing but never self-pitying, and utterly intimate” voice.