As you probably read last week, Elon Musk (founder and CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX) is sure that we’re living in a computer-generated simulation. Over at The New Yorker, Joshua Rothman takes a hard look and tries to determine the actual odds of humans inhabiting a simulated world.
It’s All a Game
Egyptian Writers on the “Unfinished Revolution”
In the run-up to the Egyptian elections, writers and booksellers discuss the military clampdown following Mubarak's fall.
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Pioneers
It’s hard to describe exactly who Delmore Schwartz was, for the simple reason that he did so many notable things. The man wrote poetry, edited The Partisan Review and The New Republic, and wrote a canonical short story at the age of twenty-five. In The Nation, Vivian Gornick makes the case for a new accomplishment, arguing that “Delmore Schwartz is to Jewish-American writing what Richard Wright is to African-American writing.” You could also read Gabriel Brownstein on life as a Jewish writer.
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Paging Elena Whoever
Is it possible to share something with a "maybe don't read this" tag attached? The literary internet has been buzzing today over the moral implications of stripping a writer (and, by association, a human) of their anonymity after this piece on Elena Ferrante was published in the NYRB. Read it or don't read it, but definitely read her work.
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Saving Borders Bookstore
I'm a little late to this one, but Ruby Vassar at the Vroman's Bookstore Blog ran a pretty funny April Fool's Day post.
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Summertime Never Gonna Die Pool Party Forever Mix
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Copyeditors Required
"On Thursday, an uncorrected proof of her debut novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, with the writer’s name was misspelled as “JA Rowling”, became the muddled copy to fetch four figures at auction." The Guardian presents a survey of famous literary typos and malapropisms. See also our own Edan Lepucki's interview with her beloved copyeditor Susan Bradanini Betz.
Religion by any other name. Musk and the others are fundamental techno-extremists. What did DeLillo say in Mao II? Or was it White Noise? What happens when the old god dies? Where does all that faith go? Apparently it goes into your iPhone. Nothing new, same old, same old, the king is dead, meet the new boss…