“If only the interest he provokes were limited to his immediate surroundings, but, alas, it is not!… Still farther away, great mountains of data mining sum up, in zeroes and ones, the ultimate truth of his being.” KA Semënova updates Nabokov‘s short story “Signs and Sumbols” (and works by other famous Russian authors) for McSweeney’s, “teh internets” and the digital world.
“Signs and Symbols” For Teh Internets
Douglas Coupland on the Perils of the Near-Future
“People who shun new technologies will be viewed as passive-aggressive control freaks trying to rope people into their world, much like vegetarian teenage girls in the early 1980s.” Novelist Douglas Coupland (who popularized the term “Generation X”) previews his lecture “A radical pessimist’s guide to the next ten years” in the Globe and Mail.
●
●
Much to Sympathize With
Recommended Reading: Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Nervous Breakdown self-interview. (FYI, you can read an excerpt of Nguyen’s latest book over at Bloom.)
Iran Boycotts Rushdie… Again
Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa has come back to haunt Salman Rushdie once again. Iran is threatening to boycott the Frankfurt Book Fair because Rushdie was invited to give the keynote speech. You could also read our essay on how Rushdie passed the time while in hiding.
●
●
Fight the Dad-Bod
Is the “Dad-bod” a harmless internet trend or an organizational principle of patriarchy? Vishnu Strangeways at The New Inquiry sides with the latter. Our own Edan Lepucki wrote a particularly relevant piece for The Millions on Beyoncé and the problem with feminist anthems–here it is.
‘Best American’ on the Cheap
Pretty good deal on Amazon today: All the e-book versions of the “Best American” books are $1.99.
●
●