If you ever wondered what it was like to have Nabokov as a professor, read on. (A lot of movie screenings, apparently.)
Pnin
Reading Rainbow returns!
LeVar Burton is relaunching Reading Rainbow! Though in a new form: the show that aired on PBS for 26 years will be available as an iPad app, which you can preview at engadget.
Curiosities: The Governor and the Glove
Hitchens looks back at the Rushdie fatwa and its legacy of censorship.The Feltron 2008 Annual Report“The Governor and the Glove” – an encounter with BlagojovichJoseph O’Neill remembers Updike (via TEV)Ted Leo performs Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark.”The Paleolithic era of online news.TNR reviews Outliers: “It is an axiom of Malcolm Gladwell’s method that a perfect anecdote proves a fatuous rule.“
Leigh Stein’s Other People Pod
The Fallback Plan (reviewed on our site) and Dispatch from the Future author Leigh Stein was interviewed for Brad Listi’s Other People Podcast, so that makes us all winners.
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Medi Marijuana Reduces Fatalities
Okay, let’s just admit that this is an interesting piece of cultural news: a new study has shown that legalizing medical marijuana sales in various states over the last two decades has led to a nearly 10 percent drop in traffic fatalities.
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What He Showed
“Thinking about his films while watching an American film leads to a sobering realization: all the things that Abbas Kiarostami could not show in his films became the only things Hollywood filmmakers chose to show in theirs. What he showed in his films were the things abandoned by Hollywood: conversation, friendship, understanding, compassion, and empathy.” A. S. Hamrah discusses Abbas Kiarostami’s legacy at n+1.
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$50,000 / Free
Michael Kimball wants to save you $50,000 dollars on an MFA – by sharing what’s he taught himself. Interested in reading more from someone without a traditional writing degree? Our own Hannah Gersen explains “The Value of Writing Programs: On Why I Don’t Have an MFA.”
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Harry Potter V. Willy the Wizard
Lit crit becomes a legal matter: “The contrast between the total concept and feel of the works is so stark that any serious comparison of the two strains credulity,” wrote the English judge who has dismissed the case against J.K. Rowling brought by the estate of Willy the Wizard author Adrian Jacobs. Jacobs’ estate claimed that Rowling had plagiarized elements of Willy the Wizard‘s plot in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
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