Posts by: Olivia Wetzel

Why We Need Libraries

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For VICE, Amelia Dimoldenberg asks people in London why they visit their local libraries. Since 2010, UK has lost nearly 350 libraries because of cuts in local spending. But the answers Dimoldenberg receives show how necessary libraries still are: “The library is a great part of the community, especially for young people who find it hard to study […]

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The Body Does Not Lie

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For Guernica, Jen Karetnick interviews dancer Natica Angilly about dance poetry, its meaning, and how she became involved in it: Natural, developed, and studied efforts to share our singular and group experience are worth pursuing in all expressive languages, especially dance and poetry. The old philosophy that “the body does not lie” [motivates us] to create […]

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Blocking Writer’s Block

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The New Yorker’s Maria Konnikova reveals the cause of writer’s block, the psychological state of those that have it and those that don’t, and how to combat it: …many symptoms of writer’s block are the kinds of problems psychiatrists think about. Unhappy writers, it seemed, were unhappy in their own ways, and would require therapies tailored […]

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Saving Trees

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For The Stranger, Rich Smith reviews Even Though the Whole World Is Burning, the film about poet W.S. Merwin and his life as a conservationist in Hawaii: The film glorifies Merwin as a giver of life, a distinction that invites an eye roll. But looking at the evidence the film presents, it’s hard to call foul. […]

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A Narrative to Relate To

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At Guernica, Elizabeth Karp-Evans interviews John Freeman, the founder of the literary journal Freeman’s, on freelancing, his goals for Freeman’s, and cultivating narratives: Narratives are individual; after that they become myths because you need to abstract a narrative to make it apply to many at once. Literature is of course subjective and universal when it’s great, […]

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Little Theaters of Heat

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Christopher Frizzelle shares a dazzling review of Garth Greenwell’s debut novel, What Belongs to You, praising its ferocity and intense exploration of homosexuality: These “little theaters of heat,” these packets of desire or panic or imminence, these doublings-down of doubt and upswellings of confidence—these concentrations of feeling are Greenwell’s subject. The novel is explicitly set in Bulgaria, […]

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John’s Pixie Dream Girls

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Mary Jo Tewes Cramb discusses the perpetuation of the “manic pixie dream girl” stereotype in John Green’s novels: In Green’s novels, there is considerable tension between the potent appeal of his manic pixie characters, the excitement and fun they bring into the narrators’ lives, and the messages these characters impart about their own lives and identities. […]

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The Power of Amazon

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How much of the world has Amazon taken over? The Guardian talks with University Book Store and Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, two independent bookstores, the former located less than a mile away from Amazon Books: …manager Tracy Taylor pointed out that many Elliott Bay customers are in fact Amazon employees. But she also said, with reference […]

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A New Nancy Drew

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An actress of color is predicted to play Nancy Drew in the upcoming CBS adaptation of Nancy Drew. At the Atlantic, Lenika Cruz reflects on this decision: The announcement will do little to quell fears that the future of entertainment will primarily be reboots, sequels, origin stories, prequels, and remakes; dooming audiences to year after year […]

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Exploring Hamilton

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Lauretta Charlton delves into Hamilton: The Revolution, the book based off of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s popular Broadway musical, Hamilton. Theater critic and author of the book, Jeremy McCarter, discusses the unique characteristics of the book: We knew from the beginning that the book ought to evoke Hamilton’s era, and one of the really distinctive things about books […]

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Writing on Old Age

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For Slate, Laura Miller reviews the way old age is explored and rendered through literature, especially by those of old age themselves: The essays in Alive, Alive Oh! resolve in a stubbornly untidy fashion; Athill rejects the unspoken, oppressively conventional “wisdom” that dominates the personal essay today. “My two valuable lessons are: avoid romanticism and abhor […]

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Totally Reactionary

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Danniel Schoonebeek discusses with photographer Marshall Scheuttle the reason for his move to Las Vegas, the contrast of his portraits with his landscapes, and the emotional space that he arrives at when photographing an especially exciting subject: My favorite photographs have always given me this feeling that I’m a participant in something I can’t control. […]

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What Bill Gates Reads

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At the New York Times, Katherine Rosman discusses Bill Gates’s blog, Gates Notes. Particularly, she considers Gates’s book reviews and recommendations: He rarely posts negative reviews of books, explaining that he sees no need to waste anyone’s time telling them why they shouldn’t bother reading something. He doesn’t spare himself, though. ‘I have a habit, which I […]

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Saving Our Minds

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At Brain Pickings, Maria Popova reviews Albert Camus’s Lyrical and Critical Essays, and suggests works by Nietzsche and Susan Sontag to read alongside Camus’s eye- and mind-opening work: If we are to save the mind we must ignore its gloomy virtues and celebrate its strength and wonder. Our world is poisoned by its misery, and seems to wallow […]

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