Following the release of Before Midnight, the new installment in Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy of films, Michelle Orange takes another look at Linklater’s 2001 movie Waking Life. (In case you don’t remember the film’s trippy style, here’s a clip.)
I Go Salsa Dancing
iLRB
Well, there goes your Sunday. The London Review of Books has uploaded a whole batch of podcasts to iTunes. And they’re free!
In a Fugue State
“Could I write a novel about fugues in the form of a fugue?” Margot Singer wonders in The Paris Review, remembering the process of writing her first novel and considering other authors – Joyce, Nabokov, Woolf – who have tried to compose words musically. See also: our own Jacob Lambert on whether to write with background music on.
The Philosopher Queen
At Slate, Jillian Goodman asks, where are all the female cultural critics?
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Censoring an Iranian Story
Recommended Reading: Iranian novelist-in-exile Shahriar Mandanipour talks about censorship, religion, and love in Little Village.
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Welcome Jacob!
We’re welcoming another regular to The Millions. You’ll recognize Jacob Lambert from his ongoing series “The Road (A Comedic Translation),” and he’ll be doing more humor pieces for us as well as whatever else he comes up with. Jacob has written for MAD Magazine for several years. He also has a regular column in Philly Weekly and freelances for various other publications. Welcome Jacob!
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Authenticity and New Orleans
Writing for n+1’s City by City series, Moira Donegan remarks on the “self-defeating contradictions” of working at a nonprofit in New Orleans. It’s a town, she writes, where most arrive to either “perform charity or to party,” and where, she feels, “many of the people who … come to help the city [are] also hurting it.” In certain ways, the piece can be read as being in conversation with Duncan Murrell’s 2012 essay for Oxford American about authenticity, preservation, posterity, and the Big Easy.
Artists and Writers Protest at TIFF
1,500 writers and artists signed a protest letter, “No Celebration of Occupation,” against the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to spotlight the city of Tel Aviv. (from Democracy Now)
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