“What I’ve found is that a lot of soldiers are surprisingly apolitical. Their reality is, ‘Today I’m going to leave the gate for twelve hours, and I’m going to make it back to the dining facility by sundown with the arms and legs of me and my buddies intact.’ So you say, ‘Well, what about the Project for the New American Century and the preexisting agenda blah blah blah?’ They go, ‘Yeah, that’s cool, but I have to get through today.’ So their reality is not a political reality as much as it’s, ‘If I’m driving by this piece of garbage, will it blow up?'” Revisit this old interview with Henry Rollins over at Guernica Magazine, which manages the nearly impossible: to be both level-headed and political.
Can a Song Stop a War?
Perils of the Humanities Students
In Florida, legislators are wondering whether or not they should raise tuition costs for students studying the humanities, or really anything other than STEM fields. Likewise, James Dyson (yes, the vacuum guy) bemoans Britain's abundance of "students choosing to read humanities at university." As a rejoinder, one New Statesman blogger notes that the study of humanities does not inhibit technological innovation, and that as a bonus, "we gain from having people who reshape our cultural landscape and put things in new contexts."
●
●
From the Newsstand
This week has brought new issues of The Quarterly Conversation (including considerations of Herta Müller, Per Petterson, and Jonathan Swift); Lapham's Quarterly (The Arts & Letters issue, featuring Salman Rushdie); and Triple Canopy ("Hue and Cry")
●
●
The Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Poets wants to build The Bridge, a social networking site aimed at connecting student poets with mentor poets. The idea is that students could find mentors for less money than a workshop or writing program might cost, and that mentors would be able to get paid without having to locate a hard-to-find teaching job. You can get a fuller idea of the plan on the organization’s IndieGoGo page.
●
●
Good Writer or Bad Dad?
Does being a writer make you a bad father? Matthew Norman ponders his fear at Salon. "As a fiction writer, I’m perpetually in some state of preoccupation. At any given moment, I’m suffering over people who don’t exist—who will never exist." Maybe he should try Polly Rosenwaike's tactic and read fiction about the opposite parent.
●
●
Twenty Years of Jest
Recommended Reading: Tom Bissell reflects on David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest twenty years after its publication. You could also read our review of The David Foster Wallace Reader.
●
●