A Séance for Robert Browning
The voice of the dead man was heard speaking… In breathless silence the little, awed group stood round the phonograph, [as] Robert Browning’s familiar and cheery voice suddenly exclaimed: “Ready?”…
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Charley Locke
107 posts
You can find Charley Locke's journalism on WIRED, tweets @CHARLEY_LOCKE, and drawings on her parents' fridge. You can also sometimes spot Charley imperiously making book recommendations while managing the McSweeney's Pop-Up Shops.
Murakami Plays Dear Abby
“There’s no use of me singing ‘I can’t stop loooooooving you’ to you, I suppose.” We beg to differ, Haruki: The Rumpus would love to hear your crooning Ray Charles…
Charles Simic on Walt Whitman
Poet Charles Simic may prefer the “pleasant aftertaste” of a literary amuse-bouche before bed, but when prompted about one of his favorite literary passages, he chose Walt Whitman’s “A Sight…
On Finding Shade in the Spotlight
How much do we know an author after reading his or her work? What right does a reader have to criticize or judge an author’s writing? Sarah Gerard, whose novel…
Vivian Gornick and a Life of One’s Own
“Giving up on love has been the work of a lifetime for Gornick,” writes Laura Marsh in a review of reporter, author and feminist Vivian Gornick’s new memoir, The Odd…
Step Inside Borges’s Library of Every Book That Will Ever Be Written
“For every rational line or forthright statement there are leagues of senseless cacophony, verbal nonsense, and incoherency.” No, that’s not Jonathan Franzen grumbling about the Internet—it’s a line from “The…
Kurt Vonnegut and Other “Inveterate Doodlers”
Sylvia Plath may not be best known for her paper dolls, but we don’t usually envision Mark Twain as an avid fan of scrapbooking, either. Check out this cool collection…
Come Hear Six-Word Memoirs on Jewish Life
You’re in San Francisco, no? And you like stories? Very brief ones? About Jewish life? Told live? Who doesn’t? Regardless of your answers to those questions, come to the SMITH…
“The Profundity of Female Friendships”
At The New Yorker, Anna Holmes writes about how “Girls” and Sheila Heti’s new novel How Should a Person Be? “treat heterosexual coupling as secondary, and how they depict the profundity of female…
Multicolored The Sound and the Fury Finally Published
When William Faulkner originally published The Sound and the Fury, he wished Benjy’s narrative could be printed in different colors to denote different time periods, lamenting that “I’ll just have to…
Dated Dating: Friends to the End
Over 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…
Romney Picking Up Good Vibrations
Over at The New York Times, Daniel Nester considers the complicated politics of the Beach Boys and muses on “the need to reconcile an artist’s politics with his art.” “You…