Thus Spake Mr. Autumn Man
Your Literary Superpower
Does reading a novel for a few hours make you feel smarter? You’re not alone: a new study suggests that reading novels heightens activity in the left temporal cortex, also known as the part of the brain associated with receptivity to language. The best part? The changes last for five days.
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The Portable Betty Draper
The literary lineage of Mad Men's Betty Draper extends to Edith Wharton and Margaret Mead, argues Laura Tanenbaum in a new issue of Open Letters Monthly.
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Gosling to Direct His own Film
Hey Girl, Ryan Gosling will direct a “fantasy noir” film he wrote entitled How to Catch a Monster. It’ll star his Drive cast-mate Christina Hendricks.
This Could Be Big
After winning a $100,000 grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation, what do you do for an encore? How about staging "fifty days of lectures, discussions, and debates" about what the future ought to look like? How about enlisting the likes of Laurie Anderson, Samuel Delany, Rachel Kushner, and Norman Rush as ringmasters? How about having the entire thing take place in structures designed by artists José León Cerrillo and Adrián Villar Rojas? Triple Canopy's "Speculations" occupies MoMA's P.S. 1 this summer
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“but for now it’s dust in our teeth”
Recommended Reading: "Appalachian Farewell" by Mark Wagenaar.
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Hemingway’s First Short Story Unearthed
"The notebook was there, unharmed, tucked inside a Ziploc freezer bag, with 'Sep. 8, 1909,' written in black marker." After Hurricane Irma passed over Key West, Florida, writer and historian Brewster Chamberlin confirmed the relic he had found in May was safe: a notebook containing the first short story by a 10-year-old Ernest Hemingway. See also: The Millions' own Michael Bourne's essay on Hemingway as a "Middlebrow Revolutionary."
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Riding and Writing
Recommended reading: Monica McFawn writes for Brevity "On Riding and Writing Boldly."
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A Few More Goodbyes
Hopefully you've read Eryn Loeb’s Millions review of Goodbye to All That, a collection of essays by noted writers on the weird sorrow of leaving New York City. Contributors include Dani Shapiro, whom we interviewed back in October, Emma Straub, who wrote an essay for The Millions back in July, and Millions staff writer Emily St. John Mandel. At the LARB, Mason Currey says he dreaded reading the book out of fear that it would raise old anxieties, but then says that his hesitations “quickly evaporated” when he started reading.
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