Betty Wants In and the Melbourne Skydive Centre have been churning out some simply amazing footage of sky divers, parachutists, and base jumpers. Check out their latest installment, Experience Freedom, and be blown away. (Previously: Experience Human Flight, Experience Zero Gravity.)
Sky Dive From Your Desk
The Best Case for Cloning
A 27 pound lobster has been caught off the coast of Maine. Now, who’s going to be the first to come up with a 50 pound dab of butter?
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John Sayles’s “Amigo” to Premiere in NYC August 10
The new film by master indie director John Sayles, Amigo, will premiere in New York on August 10th as the opening night presentation of the Asian American International Film Festival. Tickets just went on sale here; Sayles will be appearing in-person for a Q&A. “Amigo” is Sayles’s 17th feature film and a kind of historical companion piece to his recently released epic novel, A Moment in the Sun, published by McSweeney’s.
Best of Electric Lit
Here’s a look at the top-ten most read articles from Electric Literature of 2015, most of which we’ve already told you about and all of which is worth a revisit. Bonus: here’s a Best of Brain Pickings, as well.
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Only Connect
Freedom the program might not actually be so freeing: “It has been argued that a chronic fever of distraction and fascination arrives on waves of Wi-Fi to stunt our attention spans, encouraging writers to paddle about, tweeting and liking, instead of striking out for deeper waters…” But maybe writers need distraction, after all. (Then again: a detox might do you good.)
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Thank You, Scratch That
If you’ve ever been asked to write a thank-you note, you know that, paradoxically, it can be one of the hardest forms of writing to do well. In light of that, The Morning News has kindly republished their classic guide to writing thank-you notes, written by Leslie Harpold. Sample quote: “If you want to know when you get a genuine pass on writing a note, the litmus test is simple: Do I live under the same roof as the giver?”
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Poetry Rocks
Split This Rock’s Tenth Annual Poetry Contest is now open for submissions, judged by Sheila Black. All prize winners will be invited to read at the 2018 Split This Rock Poetry Festival and have their poems published in The Quarry.
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N.K. Jemisin on Octavia Butler
N.K. Jemisin writes an introduction to Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, in a reissued edition coming this April from Grand Central Publishing.
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