The New York Times asked graphic artists if “the power of storytelling could be communicated in one panel,” and they responded in comics, of course. For more comics, read Paul Morton’s essay on the 25th anniversary of Drawn and Quarterly.
The Graphics of Storytelling
Poems… In… Space!!!!
Thanks to NASA, three poets will have a chance to boldly go where no poets have gone before: Mars. Indeed, an online contest is currently open in which users can submit haiku to accompany the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission, which is scheduled for launch in late 2013. The MAVEN project will be the first mission devoted to understanding the Martian upper atmosphere. More details about sending poetry into outer space can be found here.
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A Strange Kind of Love
"I slumped into an empty corner opposite Say Goodbye, Cattullus and wept into my knees for a half hour." Catherine Lacey writes for The Paris Review's "Revisited" series, "in which writers look back on a work of art they first encountered long ago." Pair with our own Bill Morris's consideration of artists whose works channel writers.
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Prophet Asimov
It's 2014, but we still don't have self-driving cars despite Isaac Asimov's predictions. In 1964, Asimov contemplated what the world would be like 50 years later. He was fairly accurate according to David Wogan at Scientific American. "Asimov got a lot right...about how technology keeps advancing at a rapid clip, freeing humans from mundane and routine tasks. It’s the Google-fication of everything."
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“My awareness and relationship with covers began nearly a decade ago.”
Craig Mod’s superb take on book cover design in the digital age, “Hack the Cover,” is really worth the read.
“Informational Text” vs. Fiction
“The Common Core State Standards in English, which have been adopted in 46 states and the District, call for public schools to ramp up nonfiction so that by 12th grade students will be reading mostly ‘informational text’ instead of fictional literature,” writes Lyndsey Layton. Is this the end of The Catcher in the Rye?
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The Philosopher’s Lunch
"Another example of Chomsky humour: he calls his assistant’s dog, 'Cat.'" Financial Times sits down for a meal with linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky.
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Literary Culture in Boston
Boston has announced the country's first "Literary Culture District," marked by memorials to Edgar Allen Poe and Sylvia Plath. It also includes some arguably less interesting sites - the buildings that used to house The Atlantic Monthly and Little, Brown and Company, for example. Caroline O'Donovan writes critically about the new district for The Baffler and concludes that "we’ve allowed glib cultural ideals to occlude economic realities, and tourism tax dollars to triumph over a candid conversation about the origins of art and the sustainability of its production."
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