Meet Ant-Roach, an inflatable clackety six-legged robot with a protruding proboscis whose goal is to demonstrate the high strength-to-weight ratios of inflatable platforms. Can we say kid’s birthday parties?
Meet Ant-Roach
His and Hers
The novelist and essayist T Cooper has a new book out, Real Man Adventures, that reflects on his life as a trans man. At Slate, Amanda Hess gives a comprehensive take on the memoir.
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Unsustainable Sustainability
Brian Nitz wants environmentalists and writers to seriously consider whether the word "sustainable" is, well, sustainable. (Related: this XKCD comic)
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Party Crasher
Those of you with some knowledge of Pale Fire and Lolita won't be surprised to learn what Nabokov thought of dinner parties. Namely, he thought they were awful, vaguely surreal events, held largely by drunkards with overriding appetites for drama. At The Paris Review Daily, Sadie Stein quotes a passage from “The Vane Sisters” to explain why "It’s hard to think of someone you’d want less at a midcentury faculty tea, save maybe a seething Shirley Jackson.” You could also read our own Garth Risk Hallberg on Nabokov's Ada, or Ardor.
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Behind the Beautiful Forevers Headed to the Stage
The National Theater in London plans on adapting Behind the Beautiful Forevers into a stage production, reports John Williams. Don't miss Paul Morton’s Millions interview with Katherine Boo from last year.