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From Stephen Elliott
Are the days of chick lit finally over? The Atlantic seems to think so. There’s a new genre in town, and it’s called farm-lit. Novels about women who abandon their high-stress city lives to go live on farms and small, rural towns.
...moreAs strange as it might sound, according to an article in The Atlantic, American humorist David Sedaris included several vignettes in his new book Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls: Essays, Etc. that he specifically wrote for high school speech competitions called “forensics.”
Sedaris states:
...moreStudents take published short stories and essays, edit them down to a predetermined length, and recite them competitively.
Here is an actual thing said by an actual sports marketing executive to a group of commissioners trying to reform college sports:
...more“You sold your souls, and you’re going to continue selling them. You can be very moral and righteous in asking me that question, sir…but there’s not one of you in this room that’s going to turn down any of our money.
Megan Garber gives an exceptionally detailed breakdown of applause in this essay, which analyzes the history and evolution of the everyday gesture.
...moreSo the subtleties of the Roman arena — the claps and the snaps and the shades of meaning — gave way, in later centuries, to applause that was standardized and institutionalized and, as a result, a little bit promiscuous.
Via The Millions, an Atlantic blog post on the death of “America’s least favorite pronoun”: the dreaded “whom.”
It always feels like society is crumbling when big linguistic changes occur, but as Megan Garber points out, even notorious grammar stickler William Safire advised rewriting sentences to avoid using the objective-case equivalent of “who.”
If “whom” really did die out, traditionalists would mourn, but at least they wouldn’t have to deal with people overcorrecting in an attempt to sound formal.
...moreThough the apples in your local supermarket may seem homogeneous (they are, in fact, clones), wild apples come in a shocking number of sizes, colors, and flavors.
Intrigued by their variety, artist Jessica Rath embarked on a multiyear project photographing apple trees and reproducing apples in porcelain, from the speckled Dulcina to the serpentine Yellow Bellflower.
...moreByliner’s list of spectacular nonfiction articles of 2012 highlights two complementary essays from the Atlantic‘s Civil War issue.
First, Yoni Appelbaum uses a hyperrealistic “cyclotron” painting of the Battle of Gettysburg as a pin to puncture the national narrative that the Union and the Confederacy were equally noble, and that veterans from both sides had only to recognize their mutual heroism to become “comrades.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates takes on the same battle and the same narrative (as well as the same Faulkner passage) from a different perspective.
...moreA French bulldog. Big turkey dinners. Happiness.
At The Atlantic, Rumpus pal Jon Cotner has taken another stroll through New York City streets to pose blunt, fun questions to strangers. This time the query was: What is your holiday wish?
...moreThere’s more violence in Gaza today. Emily Hauser asks a tough question about Israeli claims that its strikes are surgical and aimed at terrorists.
The IDF used social media to announce and live-blog the attacks, and to celebrate the killing of Ahmed Al-Jabari.
...morePeter Mountford writes about lending a hand to the mysterious “AlexanderIII” of Moscow, who is conducting a pirated translation of his novel.
What begins as an author’s dream of “overhearing” a discussion of his phrase-work quickly becomes something else entirely.
“Though I was impressed by AlexanderIII’s dedication, his numerous message-board queries did not inspire much confidence in his translation abilities.
...moreAll of a sudden my inbox is filling up with links from friends to two essays related to poetry that have almost everything and nothing in common at once, and whose implications say a lot about how the art of poetry gets re- or de- artified.
...moreThe Atlantic ruminates on how Cheryl Strayed‘s espousal of “motherfuck-itude,” self-reliance, and radical empathy is especially relevant in our post-recession era.
“Strayed’s path—hauling her needed possessions on her back down a free trail in Wild, or her gospel of ‘nobody is going to give you a thing’ in Tiny Beautiful Things—is one in which any reader, regardless of income bracket, can find purchase… To the many people who are struggling with underemployment and debt, Strayed’s advice through her Sugar persona on how to move through the day is a solace: ‘The unifying theme is resilience and faith.
...moreThe Atlantic was lucky enough to take a behind the scenes tour of Google Maps headquarters.
During this tour, the incredible amounts of information gathered and processed by the tech giant is made very clear. They aim to make all information available in the physical world available in the digital world.
...moreThe Atlantic covers a recent study that uses twitter to analyze where the United State’s most profanity prone individuals reside:
“The Ukrainian-based web development firm Vertaline, aiming to answer that question, scanned tweets posted from across 462 specific locations in the U.S. The team then isolated particular phrases from those tweets — one of those phrases being, yep, “fuck you,” which they tracked between July 14 and July 24, 2012.
...moreOver at The Atlantic, here’s some dating advice for young people in the ’40s and from young people in the ’80s. Check out the sexist tips and take a peek into the minds and colorful notes of seventh grade girls.
...moreLooking for beach reads?
The Atlantic asked a number of trusted writers and readers, including Sash Frere-Jones, Emily Gould, and Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott, to recommend books “that live up to the spirit of summer while still making us think.”
...moreThe Atlantic captures photographs of graduates who have been unable to find a job in their fields of study and now find themselves in underpaid service sector jobs.
“From a cook in Athens with a degree in civil engineering to a waiter in Algiers with a masters in corporate finance, these young people have spent years studying hard to compete in the 21st century, only to discover that even the most desirable qualifications mean little in a distressed global economy.”
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The Atlantic examines the above graph and stats, concluding that the Internet hasn’t in fact “killed reading books” and suggesting that we have a skewed “collective memory of past.”
(Via The Daily Beast)
...moreAt The Atlantic, philosopher Michael J. Sandel breaks down the hidden (or not so hidden) costs of a culture in which almost everything is for sale, and articulates the key distinction between a market economy and a market society.
...moreAt The Atlantic, Rumpus contributor Chris Feliciano Arnold looks at efforts to draw Major League Soccer to Tucson, Arizona and wonders whether building a community around the game can be a healing force in a region “facing one of the most tumultuous periods in its history.”
...moreIn the last few days there have been many thoughtful take-downs of the already infamous Forbes “If I were a poor black kid” column. Don’t miss Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Atlantic response discussing “a muscular empathy” and confronting our own mediocrity.
...more“As I see it, the problem with Amazon stems from the fact that though it started out as a bookseller, it isn’t anymore, not really. It sells everything now, and it sells it all aggressively. Maybe Amazon doesn’t care about the larger bookselling universe because it’s simply too big to care.”
The New York Times tackles Amazon’s latest “promotion,” (which we recently condemned), collecting the reactions of writers and booksellers.
...moreWhile a 2003 report announced progress in the reduction of poverty, a new Brookings report has found that “between 2000 and 2005-09, the population in extremely poor neighborhoods climbed by more than one-third, from 6.6 million to 8.7 million.” The Atlantic breaks it down with maps revealing the concentration of poverty and analysis of the main trends that have contributed to the reversal.
...moreAt the Atlantic, Marshall Poe discusses his attempt to write a “big-idea book” about Wikipedia, and how he ended up with a “book of ideas” instead.
“Years of academic research taught me two things. First, reality is as complicated as it is, not as complicated as we want it to be.
...moreThis Ta-Nehesi Coates Atlantic piece takes a closer look at what caused the rift between abolitionists and suffragists, despite their many shared values.
“I think one way of looking at this – among many others – is to not look at the movement post-1865, but post-1835, when abolitionist women, like Anthony and Stanton, were subject to unbridled sexism among their allies and enemies alike. In antebellum America, for a woman to speak before a promiscuous audience–that is to say an audience of mixed-gender–was to invite charges of prostitution.”
...moreThe Atlantic has collected photographs of Occupy Wall Street protests across the world. The 50 photos—taken over the last several days—depict the growing nature of the movement.
...more“Depending on where you are, a thumbs up could just be a sign of approval. But in some countries, this refers to an action in the nether regions, and is meant as an offense. Visitors should note that to add insult to injury, the thumb can be jerked upwards.”
World travelers trying (not) to offend might benefit from looking over the manual Rude Hand Gestures of the World.
...moreWill Shortz, the puzzle mastermind behind the NY Times Crossword Puzzle, is revealing his strategies to the Atlantic. He goes through the whole process—fishing the right crossword from the submission slush pile, and then the major clue editing and revising that happens before the final puzzle in produced.
...more“Today, careers consist of piecing together various types of work, juggling multiple clients, learning to be marketing and accounting experts, and creating offices in bedrooms/coffee shops/coworking spaces. Independent workers abound. We call them freelancers, contractors, sole proprietors, consultants, temps, and the self-employed.”
In 2005 one-third of the American workforce was a part of the “freelance economy,” and data suggests that the numbers have been increasing as the economy has forced some workers out of traditional jobs, while others have chosen the life of the independent worker.
...moreThe project Philographics creates a series of posters “explaining complex philosophical theories through basic shapes.”
This piece enlarges some of the posters, so that you can read the brief description while eyeing the graphic of concepts such as relativism, hedonism, solipsism, and more.
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