Every year, for six months, a mysterious Twitter account tweets the Walt Whitman book Leaves of Grass in its entirety one line at a time. At The Atlantic, Rebecca J. Rosen profiles the account, which (to the owner’s bemusement) is popular among Lana Del Rey fans.
Tale of a Jetblack Sunrise
Opiate of the Masses
Regardless of your beliefs, these videos explaining the major theories of religion are a good bet to tickle your fancy. They’re also apropos in light of Pope Benedict’s new book deal.
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A Writer’s Writer
Amber Sparks investigates why short stories are overlooked. She writes, “Most people really don’t like short stories. And that includes lots of critics, who often seem to regard short story collections as a warm-up for the real thing.” Pair with Paul Vidich’s Millions piece about the future of the short story.
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I’d Prefer the Footnotes
Recommended Reading: This slick, new, annotated version of Herman Melville’s classic Bartleby, the Scrivener from the folks over at Slate. For more on Bartleby’s occupation of Wall Street, here’s a piece that should suffice.
“This music had some kind of hard edge to it”
Spin has ten selected excerpts from David Foster Wallace and Mark Costello’s re-released exploration of hip-hop, Signifying Rappers. (As always, this slideshow warrants the use of ClusterFake’s handy “De-Slide-Ifier.”)
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This Glorious Respite
“It is now, at this precise moment when I become woefully aware of the cruel transience of this seasonal offering, rarely lingering beyond the Marigold blooms of latter March, and at once I am lost amidst a magnificent vision, one in which our hallowed Saint Patrick himself is riding shotgun alongside me in this very Camry.” In which James Joyce orders a shamrock milkshake.
Selfie Sadism
Did David Foster Wallace predict our anxiety over selfies? At The Wire, Danielle Wiener-Bronner argues that Wallace was prescient in Infinite Jest. Although videophony, his concept of video-chatting, isn’t the same thing as a selfie, the paranoia over looking good is strikingly current. “This sort of appearance check was no more resistible than a mirror. But the experience proved almost universally horrifying. People were horrified at how their own faces appeared on a TP screen.”
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