Over at Words Without Borders, Esther Allen considers how to translate a song. As she puts it, “A song that almost everyone in a given culture at a given moment knows is a unique cultural artifact, a crystallized collective experience, a profound trigger that sets off a complex string of shared emotions.” Pair with Magdalena Edwards’s Millions essay on songs as triggers.
Said the Gramophone
Lit Mag Happenings
Just released: the latest issue of DIAGRAM, which is consistently one of the most interesting magazines in publication. Coming soon: Hobart's 15th issue, which is focused on "Hotel Culture," and will hit shelves in February/March. (Although you can preorder a copy now.)
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Let’s Find a Way to Make this Debate Happen
The London Review of Books made Jenny Diski watch and review Downton Abbey. Let’s just say she and our own Garth Risk Hallberg could probably have a nice debate about it.
From the Department of Prehistory
This week in palaeontology: "...how did 30-ton animals larger than four-story buildings have sex?"
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The Greatest Biscuits in the World
It’s funny and fitting that Madame Proust, in a letter now on display at the Morgan Library, implored her son to share persnickety details about what time he got up in the morning. Another thing the exhibition, which celebrates the hundredth anniversary of Swann's Way, reveals: early drafts of the book used “biscottes” in place of “madeleine.”
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Charlestopher Ditchkins
Hitchens + Dickens = Ditchens. (Or is that Hickens?)
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For Whom the Blog Tolls
The awesome Left Coast literary magazine Black Clock, whose presiding spirit is Steve Erickson, gets into the blogging game.