In 2009, Rivka Galchen wrote a lengthy piece in Harper’s about the quest to predict and control hurricanes. Now that her article is sadly apropos, it’s available for free on the web. (Said quest had a major role in the author’s excellent first novel.)
Journalistic Disturbances
Dry Eyes
“My daughter spent some of this summer performing a dance, which she learned at summer camp, to a certain song by Shakira, called “Waka Waka.” It was earnest, funny, beautiful dance; however, I am, it seems, unable to watch my daughter perform her Shakira dance, to a song I don’t very much care for, without sobbing. There is no explanation for this excessive reaction—the dance is homely and human and not at all out of this world—but that the reaction is about beauty, and joy, and potential, and not sorrow. And this, it seems, is one aspect of what crying celebrates: the sublime.” Here is Rick Moody, life coach, from The Literary Hub. Here’s a recent Millions interview with Moody.
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New Critical Flame
Issue three of The Critical Flame has arrived. Richard Nash’s review of Ted Striphas’ The Late Age of Print is a highlight.
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Solitary Reader
Rebecca Solnit writes on loneliness, intimacy, and writing in The Faraway Nearby. Melissa Holbrook Pierson reviewed the book at The Millions.
Straight out of a movie!
Tim O’Connor’s sweet story of falling in love in the cinema.
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