Sheila Heti interviews astrologer Jonathan Cainer about his craft. He tells her, among other things: “So I can’t honestly say I have an intellectual understanding about how time works. I have a faith in how it works.”
I have a faith in how it works.
The Apples Are a Gift
“This poem fosters reading again and again, because interpretation is always reaching its limits: eventually, one runs up against a secret gesture to which the only response is either to acknowledge that there is some other conscious being that could make or decipher it, or to fantasize the being that could.” A long, worthwhile review of R.F. Langley’s Complete Poems from 3:AM Magazine.
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Melatonin, Menthol Lights, Jungle Gyms
At Trickhouse‘s Back Room, Ian Ganassi lists life’s essentials, along with a few I could do without.
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e. e. cummings or YouTuber?
In honor of National Poetry Month, revisit a McSweeney’s article on whether a YouTube commenter or e. e. cummings wrote this line of poetry. Our piece on author parochialism pairs nicely.
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The Masters Review Submissions are Open
Submissions have opened for The Masters Review. Ten short stories written by emerging writers will be published in their latest anthology. Amy Hempel will judge the submissions, and the winners will receive a total of $5,000.
“How an ordinary Asian fell in love with The Smiths”
You may not expect much from a write-up about The Smiths’ new collected box set, Complete, but that’s about to change. In a phenomenal piece on the relationship between racial (in particular Asian) otherness and the UK band’s music, Sukhdev Sandhu explains how Morrissey’s “lyrics and persona mapped out a structure of feeling that spoke to my own floundering selfhood.”
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I Think I’ll Get It Done Yesterday
Are you reading this because you’re procrastinating? Do you happen to be a writer? We thought so. At The Atlantic, Megan McArdle explores why writers are the worst procrastinators. Hint: It’s because we have a bad case of imposter syndrome. This isn’t the only theory on why we procrastinate, though.
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Version Control
“Arguably versioning is a practice reserved for when a literary translator isn’t available or perhaps doesn’t actually exist who can bridge both languages. At worst, it has and can be done by colonisers or writers from major languages mangling minor literatures for sport and without care from a position of imbedded prejudice, power and authority.” Jen Calleja on the difference between translating and versioning of an original text, over at The Quietus.
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After the Storm
Ten years after hurricane Katrina, Fatima Shaik reflects on freedom of expression, gentrification, and the state of education in New Orleans. You could also check out Gary Rivlin’s Katrina: After the Flood, featured in our 2015 nonfiction preview.
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