Want to be a female travel writer? That’s great, says Jessa Crispin, just please don’t be Elizabeth Gilbert.
Don’t Be Her
Google Poetics
“There is, however, more to these poems than just the occasional chuckle. The Google autocomplete suggestions are based on previous searches by actual people all around the world. In the cold blue glow of their computer screens, they ask ‘why am I alone’ and ‘why do fat girls have high standards’. They wonder how to roll a joint and whether it is too early to say ‘I love you’. They seek information on ninjas, cannibals, and Rihanna, and sometimes they just ask ‘am I better off dead?’”
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Questlove in Question
The Roots‘ longtime drummer Questlove found himself in hot water after his late night Michele Bachman prank, but this week he’s the subject of a 2,500 word essay in Newsweek, so things have pretty much balanced out.
Dear Matthew Specktor
Thanks to Stephen Elliot‘s Letters in the Mail project, LARB senior editor Matthew Specktor finds himself admiring the gorgeous handwriting of strangers, feeling tickled and gobsmacked, and reflecting on letter writing as something “beautifully useless to do.”
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Bone Worship is Hot
How the Novel Made the World
In the June Atlantic, William Deresiewicz revisits that old favorite subject, the past and future of the Great American novel, in a review of two new books about the history of novels: The Dream of the Great American Novel by Laurence Buell and The Novel: A Biography by Michael Schmidt. (Dizzy yet? If not, consider nine other experts’ opinions on the Great American Novel here at The Millions, for a round dozen.)
Meteor Shower
Check out Clint Smith’s poem “Meteor Shower” at the Diverse Arts Project. Not into poetry? We have ten poems for people who hate poetry.
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Useable Objects
Recommended Reading: This piece from The Atlantic on Marie Kondo and the “privilege of clutter.” While you’re at it, go and read our own Janet Potter’s experience with Kondo’s wildly popular The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.
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