“And so despite my esteem for the high challenge of writing, for the reach of the writerly life, it’s not something anyone actually wants me to do. The American mind has made that very clear, it has said: ‘Be a specialised something — fill your head with the zeitgeist, with the technical — and we’ll write your ticket.’”
Why Are Writers Paid So Little, and Programmers Paid So Much?
Double, double, toil and trouble
The summer issue of Lapham’s Quarterly is here; The latest issue is magic themed and offers a smorgasbord of writing on sorcery, metamorphosis, and visitations. Most magic of all, much of it is available online for free!
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Getting Directions from Jack Kerouac
Want to retrace Sal and Dean’s On the Road journey? The Placing Literature app lets you explore with your favorite characters by mapping scenes from novels. There are 1,500 destinations currently, but you can add your favorite novels or your own work.
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Monday Linkday
My mom pointed out this article in the Washington Post about a bookstore in Baltimore that primarily gives away books rather than selling them. It’s called the Book Thing:”That’s the whole thing with the Book Thing,” Wattenberg says. “All I am is a middleman. The people have books…. They give them to me, they’re happy to have a place to see them go somewhere, and the people that get the books are happy to get the books.”Also, file under conspicuous consumption: Anyone looking for an extravagant gift for the film buff in their life should look no further.Spotted on the el: The Travels of Marco Polo… sure the red line doesn’t go all the way to China, but we can dream.
The Rogue Sarah Palin
Joe McGinniss delves into the cultural phenomenon of Sarah Palin with his new book The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin.
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The Kiss
Check out a piece from Year in Reading alum Rebecca Makkai about an important kiss at Guernica Mag.
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