Meghan Daum’s written the longest and best article on “Haterade” you’ll read this month. I guarantee it.
Hate: Is It In You?
Better To Let It Be
"Notes: Finally, a Pokémon that gets it: the living epitome of the unbearable ennui that characterizes life in the modern age. Despite having the mass of a cement truck, the Snorlax has the calm bearing of a yogi. Its rhythmic snoring chimes the steadfast paternoster of enlightened meditation. This is one Pokémon that truly doesn’t give a shit. One cannot help but feel humbled to be in the face of divinity." The only thing that could make Pokémon Go any better would be playing it with Anthony Bourdain. At McSweeney's, Allen Zhang imagines the opportunity.
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Sugar’s Advice to Christian Writers
Can Christians still "write like a motherfucker?"
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First Lines of the New Gary Shteyngart
Here are the first lines of the new Gary Shteyngart novel, Super Sad True Love Story, forthcoming in July: "Today I've made a major decision: I am never going to die. Others will die around me. They will be nullified. Nothing of their personality will remain. The light switch will be turned off."
President Obama, Literary Critic
“Remember how I said there’s a certain kind of conservatism which I respect more than bourgeois liberalism—T. S. Eliot is of this type.” President Obama wrote these words as a twenty-two-year-old student, but Edward Mendelson argues that Obama’s words as a literary critic reveal his tendencies as a politician. Check out our own Michael Bourne’s review of Barack Obama: The Story by David Maraniss, where Obama's letter was originally published.