“I am uncomfortable in my role as witness.” Nehal El-Hadi writes for The New Inquiry about the online spectacle of black death, exploring what “Black thanatosensitive” user experience design might look like. And ICYMI: our own Ismail Muhammad on Frank Ocean and depictions of the black male body.
Force Feeding
P.D. James Passes Away
Author P.D. James, “the Queen of crime writing” and subject of one of our Post-4o Bloomers essays, has passed away, reports the BBC.
Mindwiping Technology
This week in book-related infographics: a look at the future according to science fiction.
No Shyster, He
Thanks to the efforts of Gerald Leonard Cohen, the world now knows where the word “jazz” came from, why certain types of sausages came to be called “hot dogs” and how New York got the nickname “The Big Apple.”
Fifty Years of Naked Lunch
A Friday afternoon pharmacy lesson at Stop Smiling: an interview with William Boroughs, celebrating 50 years of Naked Lunch.
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Irony and Equanimity
Recommended Reading: Critic James Wood for the New Yorker on one of the most significant literary heroes of the Holocaust, Primo Levi. The three-volume Complete Works of Primo Levi is out this week.