Some folks were abuzz this week about the release of all 47 endings to Ernest Hemingway’s novel A Farewell to Arms. That kind of commitment to a single story is impressive, and illustrates the author’s dedication to his work, but as Andrew O’Hagan points out in the London Review of Books, Big Papa loved no story so much as his own.
He Even Chose His Own Ending, In A Way
Iainbanks Is Hurtling Through Space
J.L. Galache wanted to honor the recently deceased Iain Banks in a way befitting the man’s memory. So of course he named an asteroid after the author. With the help of Dr. Gareth Williams of the Minor Planet Center, Galache successfully lobbied the Committee for Small Body Nomencalture of the International Astronomical Union for Asteroid 5099 to be officially dubbed Iainbanks. (Bonus: John McIntyre honors Banks’s memory by reading through some of his best work.)
All The Single Horse Flies
Blue Ivy was the one who made the headlines, but she’s not the only Beyoncé Knowles story this week. Australian researcher Bryan Lessard has paid tribute to the singer by incorporating her name into the binomial nomenclature of an extremely rare horse fly. When asked why he did this, Lennard responded that the fly’s gold-colored abdomen made it “the all time diva of flies.”
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DIAGRAM’s 2012 Essay Contest
The deadline for DIAGRAM’s annual essay contest is fast approaching. Past winners include Peter Jay Shippy’s “Goonies: or Wallace Stevens’s ‘The Snowman’–an Essay in 7 Films” and (my all-time favorite) Cheyenne Nimes’s “SECTION 404 OF THE CLEAN WATER ACT AND THE SANTA CRUZ RIVER SAND SHARK, SUBTITLED ‘THIS TROUBLESOME REGULATORY CONSTRAINT’.”
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A Review in Verse
There’s a new Seuss book, What Pet Should I Get?, due out in a week, and Michiko Kakutani has reviewed it in verse for the New York Times. A sample:
“Yes, yes, it’s truer than true:
The great doctor made fun that was funny!
His creatures are shaggy and splendid and squishy,
In a cosmos uncertain but sunny.”
Playing Ball
In the early days of sportswriting, journalists weren’t necessarily focused on soccer, football or even baseball. In the forties, boxing and horse racing were still important beats, and they gave W.C. Heinz the opportunity to build his legacy. In the Times, a review of The Top of His Game, a new collection of the reporter’s sportswriting. You could also read Sebastian Stockman on the problem with sportswriting as a genre.
On The Emotional Dishonesty of Having a Thick Skin
At The Nervous Breakdown, Ronlyn Domingue’s honest and thoughtful “My Horrible New York Times Review” is a must-read for any writer who’s been rejected or ridiculed lately (and, really, who hasn’t been?)
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