“Every culture has its monsters,” and Jason Diamond writes about the Headless Horseman and one of the oldest American horror stories for Electric Literature.
The Headless Horseman
Dispatch From Last Week’s Episode
What better way to warm up for Leigh Stein’s forthcoming Dispatch From the Future than by reading her ongoing series of reality-TV-inspired poetry, such as this installment for The Bachelorette, Season 8, Episode 2?
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A Refuge for Reinventing the Real
“In my adolescence people spoke of ‘café intellectuals,’ not with the respect due to a sect that transmits ideas within the cramped space of a table but with the contempt reserved for those who turn their backs on reality and take refuge in vain speculation.” Juan Villoro on the writing life in Mexico City’s cafés as part of the “Writing Life Around the World” series for Electric Literature.
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Pioneering
Recommended Reading: Ruth Graham on the uncensored memoirs of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
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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.
David Foster Wallace and Mark Costello Talk Hip-Hop
The book David Foster Wallace co-authored with Mark Costello about the pair’s “uncomfortable, somewhat furtive, and distinctively white enthusiasm for a certain music called rap/hip-hop” will be re-released in the US next Tuesday. UK readers look like they’re going to get a reissue of the book on their shelves as well.
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The Literature of Loss
“Loss isn’t science; it’s a human reckoning.” The New York Times posts an e-mail conversation between Joyce Carol Oates and Meghan O’Rourke on why we write about grief, following the release of Oates’ memoir A Widow’s Story and in anticipation of O’Rourke’s own memoir of loss, The Long Goodbye.
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Just a Tribute
Imagine that someone wrote fan fiction about you. Now imagine this fan fiction is not just about you, but inspired by selfies you posted on Tumblr. This is what happened to Arabelle Sicardi, who talks with Matthew J.X. Malady about the story she received, her fans and the weirdness of Internet fame.
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Reading is a Kafkaesque Experience
In the latest entry in By Heart, the Atlantic series we’ve written about a few times, Ben Marcus (who recently came out with a new book) reflects on the true meaning of the word “Kafkaesque.” Marcus interprets Kafka’s “A Message from the Emperor” as a parable about the difficulty of real human connection. (Related: there’s now a Kafka video game.)