Last week, to mark the release of The First Bad Man, we interviewed Miranda July here at The Millions. In Bookforum, you can read another interview with July, who talks about striving to mimic the feeling of “purposely unfinished work.”
Take Two
The Lonely Island has a new hit; Semicolon.
Kurt Vonnegut famously wrote that all semicolons do is “show you’ve been to college.” What to make, then of The Lonely Island’s raunchy new song about their favorite punctuation mark? (For the record: Jorma Taccone attended UCLA; Akiva Schaffer attended UC-Santa Cruz; and Andy Samberg attended UC-Santa Cruz and NYU.)
Baumbach to Direct Emperor’s Children
Whoever decided to sign Noah Baumbach to adapt Claire Messud‘s The Emperor’s Children for the screen has a good feel for the material (Keira Knightley and Eric Bana are also attached). One kind of has to wonder about Richard Gere, though…the Murray Thwaite role is clearly destined for Brian Cox, or vice versa.
The Best of the Internet
The Bygone Bureau asked a whole heap of people to write for their annual “Best of the Internet” post, and I was one of them. Come on over to see what I have to say about Ted Berrigan, a Twitter robot, and a certain type of found poetry.
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Every House ‘Round Here a Poe House
In a turn of events that are probably not good for Baltimore’s reputation for decay, the Edgar Allen Poe House might close due to lack of funds. The Times had the details when news of the troubles first broke; at The Paris Review, you can find more links and laments.
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Russian Literary News
Russian literary news and awards — i.e. winners and runners-up of Russia’s Big Book Award — at Lizok’s Bookshelf.
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Lacking Lacks
Henrietta Lacks is finally getting some credit for her genome’s contribution to science. The subject of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was formally recognized by the US National Institutes of Health for her HeLa cells.
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I Write Lying Down
Emma Straub describes her (supine) writing rituals at The Big Other.
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Reading Rooster
There are plenty of reading apps out there, but a company called Rooster has released another, this one designed to “allow users to consume bite-sized pieces of highly curated fiction” whenever they have a few spare moments. In an interview with BookBusiness, Yael Goldstein Love, the editorial director of the project, described Rooster as aiming “to bring immersive reading, particularly fiction reading, back into busy peoples’ lives.” It’s difficult to know how to feel about this. Of course we think busy people should read good fiction, but is this just a precursor to the inevitable change of literature in the face of growing technology and shortened attention spans?
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