Wouldn’t it be nice if your brain just went ahead and created that pesky simile for you? For individuals suffering with synesthesia (a neurological disorder in which one sense is “cross-wired” with another, such as seeing the color red or hearing a sour taste) the brain does just that. Here’s a piece from Electric Literature that takes a look at synesthesia, substances, and seeing the world askew.
Seeing Red
New Collaboration Between 92Y and The Paris Review
The Paris Review and the 92nd Street Y have long collaborated on a series of onstage conversations with prominent authors. Now, these talks are going to be made available online as part of 92Y’s Poetry Center Online, and also on the Review’s website. Kicking off the first round of videos are talks with Garrison Keillor, Iris Murdoch, and William Styron. Look out in the coming months for more audio with the likes of Maya Angelou, Jamaica Kincaid, and Allen Ginsberg. (Bonus: 92Y has been adding heaps of content to its digital archive all month.)
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Wallace Stevens Week
Wallace Stevens Week(s) begin with a sprint today at Big Other, featuring an interview with poet and critic James Longenbach, an essay on Stevens’ other work, in insurance, and a list of his “most maddening, funny and bizarre” titles.
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The Vollmann Wears Prada
Just in time for the publication of Kissing the Mask, it’s…Wilhelmina T. Vollmann! If this were a TLC album, it would be called Scarysexyapposite. (via)
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a long foray in CG Omega
While writing by hand may be high risk work, the writer-typists among us face some tough decisions: what font should one employ? Do you need software to keep you from being distracted? Is it time yet for a distraction?
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“Dying is totally mainstream.”
Millions staffer Mark O’Connell immersed himself in the “transhumanist” movement for more than a year, checking in on such characters as Zoltan Istvan, the quixotic U.S. presidential candidate perhaps best-known for driving a coffin across the country. O’Connell’s book, To Be a Machine, which details dreamers like Istvan envisioning human existence liberated from the outmoded confines of the human body, publishes this month.
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