Getting sick of people who overuse the word “literally”? A new browser extension kindly replaces instances of the word with “figuratively.” At Slate, Will Oremus tries out a godsend for pedants. (A Millions piece by Fiona Maazel nicely complements his article.)
Figuratively Unbelievable
Elizabeth Bishop’s letters, edited
Elizabeth Bishop famously exchanged letters with Robert Lowell so remarkable they were later collected and published (Words in Air). This Recording has prepared a selection of her letters to Lowell and others, including one edit focused on the year after a lover’s suicide. Pair with a meditation on the relevance of Bishop’s poetry at crucial life moments.
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“Then suddenly, a bicycle”
“Since I often biked to my therapist’s, he took note of my helmet and asked how my new exercise regimen was going. It’s going great! I said. I love it! I wish I’d known earlier that I ought to bike. Now I hated going underground. It was like the death instinct to go underground, into the subway. I never realized I hated it so utterly until I didn’t have to do it anymore.” On riding a bike in New York.
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The Annual Fund
“And, it really means so much to us to watch our birds fly out of the high school nest and into an income bracket that could really benefit the Annual Fund this year. I mean, we have 85% of our goal, but as you know, that’s only a B. And we know that you are an A student.” Ah, what a heartwarming and totally genuine letter from my private, nonprofit high school congratulating me on my new job. Thanks, McSweeney’s.
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Shadowplay
Did his Nobel Prize win a couple years ago pique your interest in Patrick Modiano? Here’s another essay to sate it. In The Paris Review, Alice Kaplan examines his literary project.
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Literary T-Shirts from Kafkacotton
The t-shirt team at kafkacotton has generously offered to extend a special deal to readers of The Millions (knowing, I assume, that you bookish folks will dig t-shirts that cleverly proclaim their love for classic books). Use the discount code “THEMILLIONS” to get 10% off. Remember to put the discount code in the “Message to Seller” box. Then, I’m told, you can either immediately pay the full price and they’ll issue you a refund for the discount amount or you can wait for kafkacotton to send you a revised, discounted invoice. Thanks for setting up this deal kafkacotton!
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Pioneering Television
Make sure to set the DVR to C-SPAN2 this weekend because Konstantin Kakaes will be talking about our own e-book original The Pioneer Detectives at 7:30 p.m. EST on Sunday. Also, listen to Kakaes discuss what happens when scientists are faced with a discovery that challenges their fundamental beliefs in gravity on the New America Foundation podcast.
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