Recommended Reading: Jessica Contrera’s mesmerizing account of a shuttered Waffle House in Bloomington, Indiana. I promise you. This is worth your time.
Bud Powell Says “Goodbye”
From the Archives
Recommended Listening: The Esquire podcast has a new episode featuring Jay McInerney on Raymond Carver’s “My Father’s Life,” which first appeared in the magazine in 1984.
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DFW a Year Later
David Foster Wallace died a little more than a year ago. It's a good time to revisit Garth's excellent piece written shortly after Wallace's death. More recently, No Pun Intended published a long reflection on Wallace.
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Neomysterativity
The term “academic writing” is controversial, not least because it implies that academics have an odd and persnickety way of writing. In a blog post for The New Yorker, Joshua Rothman examines the genre, looking back on his time in grad school to argue that academic writing is a “fraught and mysterious thing.”
More on Roth
The Economist digs into the stupid "debate" over Philip Roth's International Booker win.
Essential Differences
“To the list of differences between men and women, we can add one more: the drug-dose gender gap. Doctors and researchers increasingly understand that there can be striking variations in the way men and women respond to drugs, many of which are tested almost exclusively on males.” On the strikingly persistent gender gap in pain.
Was just reading this article and musing about its relation to some of the comments on the Millions’ recent article on “John The Posthumous” by Jason Schwartz. The Millions comments raised some interesting questions about complex and simple style.
When I think about a complex, intricately detailed writing style, it bring to mind “My Name Is Red” by Orhan Pamuk. The style is such a perfect match for the setting – the 16th-century Ottoman Empire, and the lead character – a master miniaturist and illuminator of books. The novel is stuffed full of exotic tidbits -figurative art and Islam, tricky marital law issues, weird fantasies. I loved the novel and now pine to visit Istanbul.
In contrast, Ms. Contrera’s story is built up of deceptively simple observations, in a plain “Midwestern” style, that coalesce to creative a massive emotional impact. The style made me think of flat Indiana roads and sunshine.
I loved both pieces, and found the choice of style perfect for the story told. As my buddy Randy at the Y security desk says regularly, “It’s all good!”
Beautiful piece. Visits to that Waffle House were a cornerstone of my 4 years in Bloomington.