You’ve probably heard the internet adage, “If it exists, there is a porn of it.” Never has that been truer than in the case of the political erotica of 2016. From a particularly colorful Cruz/Rubio series: “’Who is this Hillary you’ve been texting?’ Rubio asks Cruz. ‘Saying things like ‘meet me when Marco’s not home,’ ‘I can hook you up,’ ‘what’s the price’ … don’t act all naïve right now!'”
Of Rainfall and Fluffy Bathrobes
Tune in next week
Emily Nussbaum on the poetry of cliffhangers, “which makes visible the storyteller’s connection to his audience—like a bridge made out of lightning. Primal and unashamedly manipulative, cliffhangers are the signature gambit of serial storytelling.”
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Dark and Tough
Last year, Laura van den Berg came out with a new book, The Isle of Youth, which Nathan Huffstutter reviewed for The Millions. On the Guernica blog, Dwyer Murphy interviews van den Berg, who talks about jacket photos, her first collection and whether a writer from Florida is part of the Southern tradition. (You could also read van den Berg’s Year in Reading entry.)
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Jefferson on Construction
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Final Thoughts
“If this was our own son and daughter, would we stop loving them simply because they had dreams of making it big on the stage, or in a career that few people actually respect? No way.” Jerry Springer on making art.
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Torching Alexandria
“This particular moonshot fell about a hundred-million books short of the moon.” Over at The Atlantic James Somers has the story of what went wrong with Google’s audacious plan to digitize all the world’s books. And like an interesting time capsule, you might want to read Robin Sloan in our own pages from some years back about a very, very cool book scanner.
The Long Birthday
On this day 124 years ago Raymond Chandler, hardest of the hard-boiled, was born. To celebrate the father of Philip Marlowe see these letters Chandler wrote to some of his contemporaries, listen to Chandler’s interview with Ian Fleming, and enjoy a couple classic Chandlerisms. Most importantly, read “The Simple Art of Murder,” the greatest essay about the mystery novel ever written.
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Édouard Levé’s “Amérique”
Recommended Viewing: Suicide and Autoportrait author Édouard Levé’s photography series, “Amérique.” The series looks at towns in the United States bearing the same names as towns in other countries.
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