The more you know! In Victorian times, sitting for a photograph could last hours due to primitive camera technology and the need for long, long exposures. This, predictably, didn’t jibe with kids, and so parents had to adopt an ingenious workaround: disguising themselves in the picture so they could physically restrain the youngsters. (Don’t miss Part 2, either.)
How They Did It Before Sears
Reading Lists for Fall
The editors at Poetry have compiled a reading list from their contributors' suggestions, and the result is a healthy mix of poetry books new and old. Pair their suggestions with Tom Nissley's "September Books: A Reading List for Beginnings."
DeLillo and Trance States
Charles Baxter notes, "If you have read several books by Don DeLillo, sooner or later you will have a Don DeLillo moment." For Baxter, these are often "trance states," of which DeLillo's newest collection, The Angel Esmeralda, contains many.
A Sentimental Journey
E.V. de Cleyre writes for Ploughshares about sentimentality. As she puts it, “It is not enough to have a feeling and express it—we must exercise discernment, ask what these feelings we’re feeling are, dissect them, and find the language that matches how they look, feel, smell, and taste.” Pair with this Millions essay on literary sentiment.
●
●
Taste Lessons for Adults
How do you eat your broccoli? British food historian Bee Wilson’s newest book, First Bite: How We Learn to Eat takes a hard look at how eating is a learned, cultural behavior–and how it’s never too late to change bad eating habits.
“Signs and Symbols” For Teh Internets
"If only the interest he provokes were limited to his immediate surroundings, but, alas, it is not!... Still farther away, great mountains of data mining sum up, in zeroes and ones, the ultimate truth of his being." KA Semënova updates Nabokov's short story "Signs and Sumbols" (and works by other famous Russian authors) for McSweeney's, "teh internets" and the digital world.
●
●
The Island of Last Chances
Have you ever had a script rejected? Did you reassure yourself it had to do with just about anything other than the quality of your writing? Well now's the chance to put your money where your mouth is - a new Hollywood startup called Adaptive Studios is "rummaging through the trash" and breathing new life into dead movie scripts.
Daniel Orozco’s Orientation
Daniel Orozco's Orientation collects many of his short stories in one attractive volume. Released last May, the collection features the classic story "Orientation" (Scribd) as well as newer ones such as "Shakers" (Scribd). It garnered enough hype to land him on the long list for this year's Frank O'Connor Award.
●
●