A Taste of Saudade
Cohen’s New Old Ideas
Leonard Cohen's new album Old Ideas is getting glowing reviews. Slate says of Cohen, "When it comes to lyrics, he’s second to no one—including Dylan."
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Oxford Marginalia Group
Recommended reading: Lauren Collins writes for The New Yorker about the Oxford University Marginalia group and the fate of bookish scribblings.
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What a Gas!
Anatoly Liberman unwinds the etymology of "fart," a word that, despite seeming modern, was used in the original legend of Thor and has been with us since the birth of the Indo-European ur-language.
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Vicious Circle
Michele Filgate was so terrified by Dave Eggers's The Circle that she quit social media for a week and wrote about the experience for Salon. "I don’t want to become like Mae, sacrificing real-life friendships for the allure of the screen. I want to be aware of the world around me. I want to write about that world. I want to feel more alive, even if that means being lonelier in the process." Pair with: our review of the novel.
RIP Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel -- Auschwitz survivor, Nobel Laureate, political activist, and author of Night -- passed away yesterday at the age of 87. Here's a quote that perfectly captures Wiesel's essence, from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech: "I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe."
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Origin Story
Over at JSTOR Daily, Tara Isabella Burton writes on historical interpretations of the Book of Genesis and literal readings of a text that had been interpreted as allegory for centuries.
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