If you’ve read the Inferno, you’ve journeyed with Dante and Virgil to the ninth circle of Hell. At McSweeney’s, you can go grocery shopping with them. “Abandon all carts, ye who enter here.”
Abandon All Carts
That Rare Outlaw
Recommended Reading: Michiko Kakutani on a new biography of Johnny Cash.
Two Dollar Radio Moving Pictures
Indie press Two Dollar Radio announced today that they’re launching Two Dollar Radio Moving Pictures, a micro-budget film division. They’ll open with three new projects (announcement video here) funded by a newly-opened IndieGoGo campaign. Donors will not only be contributing to a worthwhile venture from one of America’s best small publishers, but they’ll also be in line to receive a heap of sweet perks from the likes of Grace Krilanovich, Karolina Waclawiak, Joshua Mohr, and Scott McClanahan. Bonus: publisher (and Millions contributor) Eric Obenauf spoke with Paul Martone for the Late Night Library podcast.
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How Long ’til Computers Start Buying Books?
Do "algorithms and online recommendations threaten to replace [publishers] as arbiters of quality"? This Economist riff on e-book publishing says so. Elsewhere, at least 20 companies are using computer software instead of human beings to write their articles.
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After great Cake – a formal Frosting comes…
We all revere Emily Dickinson's poems, but who knew she was also a great baker? Spend your weekend rereading the Dickinson oeuvre, and then top it off by attempting her coconut cake recipe.
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The Softer Side of HAL
No matter how you feel about poetry readings, you should take a look at this video, which excerpts the Stanford Computer Science Department’s first-ever Code Poetry Slam.
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Opiates
“The cause of death/was living/the immediate cause/of death was/living in Moscow.” At n +1's website, Ainsley Morse and Bela Shayevich excerpt their translations of the Soviet poet Vsevolod Nekrasov.
Meghan O’Rourke on Anne Carson’s Nox
At The New Yorker, Meghan O’Rourke lyrically reviews Anne Carson's latest work Nox: “Grief is paradoxical ... The literature of mourning enacts that dilemma; its solace is mainly in the ritual of remembering the dead and then saying, There is no solace and also, This has been going on a long time.”
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