What’s In A Name?
James Salter (1925-2015)
Writer James Salter died on Friday. We interviewed him in 2012 and he reflected on memory and on his long life as a writer. He said, “Everything you know, nobody else knows, and everything you imagine or see belongs to you alone. What you write comes out of that, both in the trivial and deepest sense.” Prior to that, in 2010, Sonya Chung wrote about Salter’s legacy and how he finally seemed to be getting his due as more than just “a writer’s writer.”
Route Nine’s Alumni Omnibus: 50 Years in the Making
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the University of Massachusetts Amherst MFA Program, the school’s literary magazine – Route Nine – gathered work from over 80 alumni to create a special Alumni Omnibus issue. The collection just went online recently, and it’s tremendous.
●
●
Hip-Hop Close Captioning for the Lyrically Impaired
“Yeah my drop sick…and my knot thick,” boasts Li’l Wayne in “A Milli.” Sounds great, but what the hell does it mean? Rap Exegesis, a hip-hop translation service, has the answer to this and other lyrical conundrums.
Who Says Print is Dead?
The Little Printer is an adorable new printer that connects to the internet and allows you to print out “miniature personal newspapers” every day.
●
●
Rudyard the Rebel
Remember the Rudyard Kipling poem where he says the British government should be scalped? We don’t either. However, a forthcoming book of lost Kipling poems, 100 Poems: Old and New, shows his anti-establishment side. An excerpt from the aforementioned poem, “Laudatores Actoris Empti:” “Come, let us lightly scalp the brood / Of ‘educated middle classes’ / Who, much perplexed with ‘views’ and ‘goals’ / Now govern London – and our souls”
●
●
Books vs. “Books”
Recommended reading: Alex Beam on the distinction between books and “books.”
●
●