As you might expect, the world of Game of Thrones fanfiction is complicated, pornographic and more than a little bit intimidating.
A Song of Spare Time
The Rude Writer
In the September issue of Elle, Lorrie Moore talks about why being a writer means being creepily detached and rude. Redux here at Jezebel.
Light as a Feather
“We can work harder to mourn, get better at it, connect it better to how we live, how we care for people, how we educate people. It’s politics, for me.” ZYZZYVA interviews Max Porter about his Grief Is the Thing with Feathers. Pair with Lidia Yuknavitch’s Millions essay on grief and art.
Rebecca Solnit on the Value of Nonlinear Narratives
As American as Borscht
Nabokov once described himself “as American as April in Arizona,” which is an odd thing to call yourself when you’re a lepidopterist Russian expat. In Nabokov in America, Robert Roper explores why Nabokov felt he was so American, and how his journey to that identity influenced his writing of Lolita. At The Literary Review, Ian Sansom reviews Roper’s book.
Talking Truth to Power
“Steinem welcomed them all—the rich, the celebrities, the climbers for the cause. She was a radical but, consciously, never an outsider. She enjoyed the world where she plied her trade as an entrepreneur of social change, and, with her mouth spray at hand, she had long since mastered the subterfuges of talking truth to power. You could call it consciousness-raising—on a wider canvas.” The New Yorker profiles Gloria Steinem in anticipation of her latest release, My Life on the Road.
The Lonely Sidewalk-Man
Recommended (Hilarious) Reading: Mallory Ortberg from The Toast gives you every noir story set in Los Angeles in helpful, bulleted format.
Lemony Snicket’s Poetry Selections
Lemony Snicket curated a “children’s poetry portfolio” for Poetry, however the poems contained therein “are not made for children.” Take a look for yourself. There are selections from Maram al-Massri, Carl Sandburg, Katerina Rudcenkova, Ron Padgett, and more.
How 3d Projectors Make 2d Movies Worse
Roger Ebert explains how the time-consuming process of changing the lenses on complicated new 3d projectors is diminishing the theater-going experience.