What do you do when McSweeney’s rejects your humor piece? You could, like most people, slink off and write something new, perhaps after a quick look at the site to get a better sense of what they’re looking for, or you could write a new humor piece about getting rejected by McSweeney’s. At The Nervous Breakdown, Rachel Pollan takes the latter route (with a cameo by the movie Swingers).
Area Woman Makes the Best of It
Poetry!
At the recently re-launched Poems Out Loud site, you can see Stanley Kunitz talk about Gerard Manley Hopkins, and hear contemporary poets like Kim Addonizio read their own work.
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But How Many Samples Does it Use?
One good way to spend your Sunday: reading a 7,834-word Atlantic profile of Kanye West. Heck, even Obama’s a fan.
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In Case You Were Curious
Baratunde Thurston, stand-up comedian and director of digital for The Onion, stops by NPR’s Fresh Air to read from his new memoir and satirical self-help book How to Be Black.
Just Saying…
William Carlos Williams was a poet born for the age of Twitter. Or, rather, his poem “This is Just to Say” is perfect for Twitter parodies. Potato, potahto.
Branching Out
Is it possible to read fiction by an actor without thinking of them as the character that made them famous? It’s a question many people asked when reading James Franco, and it’s a question they’re likely to ask again when reading One More Thing, a new book of short stories by The Office star B. J. Novak. At Open Letters Monthly, Justin Hickey reviews Novak’s collection.
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