Over at The Rumpus, Brian Gresko argues that every writer, even cis men, should be openly discussing the complications of gender. As he puts it “Self-censorship is a twisted birthright passed down to boys by their fathers.”
Boyhood
Stars and Bodies
Recommended listening: David Naimon interviews Sarah Gerard, author of Binary Star, about "anorexia and astronomy, stars and bodies." Pair with Alex Norcia's Millions review of Gerard's novel here.
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Connected by “And” and “And”
New books of poetry from names like Linda Gregerson and James Tate are always a cause for celebration. Over at the New Yorker, Dan Chiasson takes a look at Gregerson’s Prodigal: New and Selected Poems and Tate’s Dome of the Hidden Pavilion in one extremely thorough essay.
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Poetry As Enchantment
“The magical aspect of poetry does not diminish the value of critical scrutiny. Scholarship has clarified the meaning of poetry. The point is rather that an essential part of poetry’s power has little connection to conceptual understanding. Poetry proffers some mysteries that lie beyond paraphrase.” Dana Gioia with a beautiful essay on the enchantment of poetry for The Dark Horse. Check out our extensive On Poetry archive and continue your journey of poetic enchantment.
The Electric Mind, The Atavist
David Carr takes a look at The Atavist, whose team of multimedia gurus has won the attention (and seed funding) of Google founder Eric Schmidt. Of course, the outfit’s also been receiving generous attention for their quality work, too. (I mentioned them a few months ago.) More recently, however, certain scientific circles have fawned over the subject of their story The Electric Mind, which tracks one paralyzed woman and the scientists who developed the BrainGate technology which eventually got her moving... robotically.
Fifty Shades of Scandal
What's the translation of "ooh la la"? Looks like Fifty Shades of Grey has become a contraband hit in China.
On Ruined Pianos and Literary Fêtes
The Paris Review will soon move into a new office space, and while preparing for the relocation, some staffers discovered “a batch of small, white booklets” entitled “The Paris Review: Twenty Year Index, Issues 1-56.” The lists seemed to indicate everything that had been published in the magazine during its first 23 years of existence, and they also featured an introduction from founder George Plimpton – an introduction, by the way, that really depicts the Review of old better than any photograph ever could.
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