Street Cred
Take a Look
“I remember LeVar shooting at a zoo and an elephant had a cold and kept blowing snot all over him. He never lost his cool. ‘OK, let’s try it again.’” OMG guys, Mental Floss has an oral history of Reading Rainbow! And let us also never forget the reminiscences of our founder C. Max Magee‘s mom upon learning the show would be cancelled.
Oh, Tom Drury, how I love thee.
If you’re a fan of Tom Drury (and if you aren’t–what’s wrong with you?), you’ll be excited to know that the new short film based on his short story “Path Lights” is now online at the David Lynch Foundation. The film was directed by Zachary Sluser, and stars John Hawkes.
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Digital Love
Jonathan Franzen’s 2011 Kenyon commencement speech, published this weekend in the New York Times, covers love, consumerism, and narcissism in the digital age. If you’re concerned with critical reception, looks like you’re not a creator of “serious art and literature,” in Franzen’s eyes.
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Mississippi, 1952
Recommended Viewing: This 1952 documentary about William Faulkner and his hometown.
The Mad and Feral Works of Shirley Jackson
Emily Alford on the hazards of loneliness seen in Shirley Jackson's books and the ways recent film adaptations have missed the mark.
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An Absolute Must Read
David Grann in The New Yorker: “Did Texas execute an innocent man?” This is why long-form journalism matters.
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Tune in next week
Emily Nussbaum on the poetry of cliffhangers, “which makes visible the storyteller’s connection to his audience—like a bridge made out of lightning. Primal and unashamedly manipulative, cliffhangers are the signature gambit of serial storytelling.”
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