“The Time I Spent On A Commercial Whaling Ship Totally Changed My Perspective On The World,” a blogger named Ishmael writes, on the sister blog to The Onion. (But I like these titles better.)
If we explain this any more the joke will be lost
To Boldly Go
“[Maria] Bamford’s newest show…is a more polished product, but equally radical—as unsettling as anything Andy Kaufman ever did.” Is the Internet the comedy world’s final frontier?
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Lethem on Dyer
Jonathan Lethem‘s profile of Geoff Dyer for BOMB Magazine is available online for a limited time only.
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The Queens Bookshop Initiative
What can make the world a better place? Books. Check out this Kickstarter to bring a bookstore to Queens.
“Platonic Word”
Recommended reading: Edward Mendelson reflects on “how bizarrely Platonic [Microsoft] Word can be” and on writing in WordPerfect, where “the world seems more open, a place where endings can’t be predicted, where freedom might be real.”
Building Covers
Year in Reading alumnus Chris Ware drew the cover of this week’s New Yorker. (If you liked his latest, Building Stories, you might like reading our review.)
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After the Wall
“[Christa] Wolf was a committed dissident in the GDR (East Germany) and a forceful voice resisting Western triumphalism after reunification. It would seem like some sort of explanation was owed to the public. Yet how does one give an account of oneself when the link to the past, to the psychological and cultural backdrop of such fateful decisions, is not even subjectively available?” On City of Angels: Or, the Overcoat of Dr. Freud.
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Poetry As a Response to Sexual Violence
“Most poems are rooted in a powerful emotion. With visuals and details of violence against women being flashed every second on TV and debated by different groups, it is only natural that such incidents become themes in our writing,” says Bindya Subba, who is one of several Indian poets writing response pieces to the recent rape incidents in Delhi and Mumbai.