Wikipedia states that its ultimate mission is to collect all the knowledge in the world. The biases of its users may earn the site a few jabs, but if a number of studies which compare the site’s articles to those of professional encyclopedias are reliable indicators, its content is accurate enough to satisfy the needs of most users. But now the whole project may be in trouble for a simple and very odd reason — it’s apparently done so well that most of its contributors have gone home.
Our Sources are Reliable
A Seminal Work
Over at The Literary Hub, real-life writer Anthony Marra has conducted a hilarious interview with Dana Schwartz, the creative mind behind everyone’s favorite–if uncomfortably familiar–Twitter account, @GuyInYourMFA. Here’s the New York Times review of Marra’s latest novel, The Tsar of Love and Techno.
Diary of International Pynchon Week
At n+1, Nick Holdstock’s diary of International Pynchon Week, held in Lublin, Poland: “The conference room looked like the United Nations as depicted in ’60s spy movies … on the pad of the man to my left there were no notes, just a drawing of a cat wearing a shirt and tie.”
Elif Batuman on Reading the Russians
Essayist and Russian literature scholar Elif Batuman in an interview with the Boston Globe on how the Russians get the combination of “funny and sad” better than the Germans, the English, or the French.
Sick Burns
Daily Show writer Daniel Radosh was asked by his son’s school to sign a permission slip in order to read Ray Bradbury‘s Fahrenheit 451. Hilarity ensued. Also: remember that time a bunch of parents tried to censor The Lorax?
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