“What love does in this union is dark and difficult and glorious — and stands on the side of life; who would dare or even want to guess more about it than that; and indeed, you will experience it. Certainly not without interruptions and doubts.” Lou Andreas-Salomé’s poignant advice on love and art to none other than Rainer Maria Rilke is certainly Valentine’s Day-appropriate.
Still Concealed Mysteriousness
Rolling Readers
“They don’t want to get off the bus because they wanted to keep listening.” A Texas library system has outfitted a handful of public school buses with wi-fi access and digital audiobooks, reports The Digital Reader. Pair with this celebration of perambulatory reading.
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Shaking Down Cage the Elephant
Cage the Elephant is considered one of the best young indie rock acts today, but the band got its start in the burgeoning music scene in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Sometime Millions contributor Craig Fehrman wrote a Kindle Single on Cage the Elephant and its influential hometown, Home Grown: Cage the Elephant and the Making of a Modern Music Scene. You can read his past Millions essays on the history of literary Time covers, Lewis Hyde’s understanding of intellectual property, and an ethnography of readers at Borders.
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Johnny Depp and Hunter S. Thompson
When Terry Gilliam adapted Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Johnny Depp portrayed protagonist Raoul Duke. It became one of his most iconic roles. Now, thirteen years later, Depp will play protagonist Paul Kemp in Bruce Robinson’s adaptation of The Rum Diary. You can check out the trailer here.
The Great Tranquility
“Yehuda Amichai’s genius lies in how—to borrow from his own language—he makes metaphor ‘useful.’ He thinks metaphorically, and in so doing he makes stories of them, treating his likenesses as if they were not metaphorical but animated literalisms. That’s why, I suspect, his metaphors have not merely poetic power but practical vitality, in the way that a horse is not only alive but usefully alive.” Every time James Wood publishes a big profile in The New Yorker, it’s worth a read; this week’s essay on the “secular psalmist” and poet Yehuda Amichai is no different.
Together
Writing a novel together might seem like a recipe for conflict, but Gavin Kovite and Christopher Robinson, who co-wrote War of the Encyclopaedists together, argue the exercise ended up deepening their longtime friendship. At Salon, they explain why.
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