As a way of commemorating Philip Roth’s 80th birthday, the Newark Preservation and Landmarks committee is offering a $35 bus tour called “Philip Roth’s Newark.” Visitors will get a tour of “places recalled in Mr. Roth’s books” such as Washington Park, the Essex County Courthouse and “various spots in the Weequahic neighborhood where Mr. Roth was born and raised.”
Philip Roth’s Newark
Baseball and Poetry: America’s Pastimes
Celebrate the start of baseball season and the beginning of National Poetry Month at the same time by reading Hobart’s annual Baseball Issue. This year, the site plans on rolling out “daily baseball stories, poems, essays, and other baseball miscellany,” so it’s pretty much the Venn diagram overlap of all of your April needs.
Stalking Eileen Myles
Former Millions intern and current McNally Jackson bookmonger Rachel Hurn discusses “escaping from” San Diego with Eileen Myles. “The sixth time I saw Myles read, I told her I was stalking her,” Hurn writes. “I think she thought I was serious. Maybe I was.”
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Make America White Again
“So scary are the consequences of a collapse of white privilege that many Americans have flocked to a political platform that supports and translates violence against the defenseless as strength. These people are not so much angry as terrified, with the kind of terror that makes knees tremble.” We highly recommend you read Toni Morrison‘s post-election essay for The New Yorker.
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When Foxes Become Dogs
The Silver Fox Experiment began in 1959 when Soviet scientist Dmitri Belyaev began selectively breeding wild foxes until they became more “dog-like” and tame. Today, the experiment continues at The Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk.
Putin Wins the World Cup
“Putin, like Hitler, understood that the purpose of spectacles is to dazzle the eye while clouding the mind.” For the Daily Beast, staff writer Bill Morris writes about the thuggish dictators who love the propaganda of the World Cup. (If you haven’t already checked out our list of seven great soccer reads, do it now!)
Next Up: The Norton Anthology of Infographics
Now that they’ve announced the impending publication of The Best American Infographics, it might be prudent to revisit Reif Larsen’s classic Millions article, “This Chart Is a Lonely Hunter: The Narrative Eros of the Infographic.”
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