“There is one rule [to writing biography] that all who try their hand at it come to know: until the protagonist reveals his or her character—his or her inner self—what the biographer produces is less a life than a report, an autopsy rather than the record of a séance.” David Levering Lewis writes for The American Scholar about biography and writing “the lives of African-American figures, and [finding] in them the story of our times.”
Biography: The Story of Our Times
Big Abroad
An Iranian opposition leader said Gabriel García Márquez’s News of a Kidnapping accurately reflected his life under house arrest. As a result, the book is flying off the shelves in Tehran. But why do you think Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is so big in the UK?
●
●
Debatable, To Say the Least
Researchers at Google have analyzed "audiovisual patterns," "title, description and tags," "words associated with amusement" in user comments, "emoticons," and even the number of o's in the average "LOL" in various YouTube videos in order to identify the funniest content on the web. Then they set up an algorithm to rank their findings, and subjected those findings to an audience vote (which you can join over here). Based on their calculations so far, this was the funniest video of all time. What do you think?
Kindle Library Lending
Yesterday, Amazon announced "Kindle Library Lending," a new feature coming later this year that will allow users to go to their local libraries and "check out" books to their Kindle. The eBooks can be kept for about the same amount of time as a normal library book. The users can take notes in the margin, which, if they decide to buy the book or check it out again, will still be there. Technology!
●
●
OH, THE WORDS
2012 is off to a good start for DIAGRAM. In February, their fourth print anthology will be released. Their next issue will be an "ALL-ESSAY SPECTACULAR" (caps their own), and they've just released their latest issue on their site.
●
●
Book Pirates
The American author is dead, long live the American author! At the New York Times, a eulogy.
●
●
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."
●
●