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
Retreat with Eliot
Looking for a New England writer's retreat? Perhaps you could stay in T. S. Eliot's childhood summer home.
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Latino Book and Family Festival
Los Angeles-based readers of The Millions might be interested in this weekend's Latino Book and Family Festival at the Cal State LA campus. Authors in attendance include Helena María Viramontes, Eduardo Santiago, and Luis J. Rodriguez, among others.
Hanging Out with Alice and Margaret
Science Genius
The Science Genius Initiative is a pilot project organized by Rap Genius, science teachers from ten New York City public schools, and GZA. Together, the group hopes “to change the way city teachers relate to minority students, drawing not just on hip-hop’s rhymes, but also on its social practices and values.” Indeed, as the Wu-Tang Clan emcee – who’s been working with Neil DeGrasse Tyson and MIT physicists for his new album – believes science is worth studying because it “unlocks the key to the universe, and the mysteries we don’t know.”
Life on Earth
“I’m the one who gets asked, publicly, how I manage to write and teach and have three kids. Do you get those questions, or do people just assume there is a woman doing all of the homemaking so you can go upstairs and write?” Poets Tracy K. Smith and Gregory Pardlo discuss David Bowie vs. Elton John, the confessional vs. the abstract, and the balance between family and work. Also check out Sophia Nguyen’s Millions review of Smith’s new memoir, Ordinary Light.
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Calling All Students!
Calling all undergrads and grad students! McSweeney’s is holding their first-ever Student Short Story Contest. The grand prize -- $500 and publication in their 51st issue -- will go to the student who sends in the best story before the last day of August. Get cracking, but don’t go beyond their 7,500-word limit.
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