“What’s emerging from these studies isn’t just a theory of language or of metaphor. It’s a nascent theory of consciousness.” Michael Chorost writes about the importance of metaphors in literature and the brain.
“Your brain on metaphors”
Flannery’s Home
Over at The Paris Review, Wei Tchou travels to Flannery O’Connor’s farm in Georgia. As she writes, “The charm of Andalusia lies in gestures like this, the ones that urge you into feeling as though you belong. The place isn’t a fossil, it’s a home.” Pair with Nick Rapatrazone’s Millions essay on teaching and learning from “the greatest American writer ever to load up a typewriter.”
●
●
The Poet’s Essay
Recommended Listening: David Naimon interviews recent Whiting Award-winning poet Brian Blanchfield about his essay collection, Proxies.
●
●
Google Labs’ Ngram Viewer
In a TED Talk, Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel show us how Google Labs’ Ngram Viewer works. You can learn “surprising things” from 500 billion words, a string of characters which put together “would stretch from here to the Moon and back ten times over.”
●
●
George R. R. Martin Commits to Seven Books (But Maybe Eight?)
On behalf of every reader / HBO viewer who has spent days upon days in Westeros and is beginning to get a little anxious for Game of Thrones updates, Entertainment Weekly has spoken with George R. R. Martin himself to confirm publication plans and talk about the television series. That’s not to say that Martin is committing himself to any hard and fast schedule, though. “My plan right now is still seven,” he says, referencing his A Song of Ice and Fire series. “But first I have to finish Book Six. Get back to me when I’m half-way through Book Seven and then maybe I’ll tell you something more meaningful.”
Auspicious Beginnings
Please welcome the newest Millions reader: Amos O’Driscoll Hallberg, born Saturday morning. Congrats Garth!
●
●