The appeal of larger food packaging is, apparently, linked to a hunger for socioeconomic status rather than the rumblings of the stomach.
I like big food and I cannot lie
What They Teach
For those who are out of the collegiate loop and are curious what’s being assigned in classrooms these days, The Literary Hub has compiled a fascinating list of books being taught by English professors at institutions across the country. Pair with these two related pieces from The Millions on the business of teaching creative writing and fifty-five thoughts on teaching English in public school.
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Literature, Morality, and $25,000
"Morality... is a slippery slope and nowhere more, perhaps, than in regard to art, to literature, which begins as the expression of a single heart, a single mind. That it becomes more than that — connective, the fiber of a conversation between writer and reader, and between both of them and the world — is not just the point but the miracle... To frame this miracle in moral terms is to misread what art extends to us: a way of joining, for a moment only, across the void." In an article for the LA Times, David L. Ulin considers the implications of the George V. Hunt, SJ Prize for Excellence in Journalism, Arts and Letters, which will award $25,000 to a writer “of sound moral character and reputation [who] must not have published works that are manifestly atheistically or morally offensive.”
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Greater and Greater
The passing of Muhammad Ali was sad for fans of both sports and greatness alike. One little known Ali fact is that he once composed a line-for-line sonnet with another one of "the greatest," the poet Marianne Moore. Let none other than George Plimpton explain it to you.
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“This is how we trace our paths back to the source of trouble.”
Recommended Listening: Bonnie Jo Campbell reads her poems “Teakettle” and “Scribblers” for The Southern Review’s podcast.
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Talking History
On the topic of reading classics: Alberto Manguel at the New York Review of Books considers the dialogue across history that books afford. "The relationship between a reader and a book... eliminates the barriers of time and space, like 'conversations with the dead.'"
Put on Your Thinking/Dunce Cap
At Slate, David Wolf reviews a new biography of Rene Descartes, who he claims has developed a reputation as the philosophy world’s favorite punching bag.
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