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This American Life, Moving Forward
Ira Glass loses his voice; Ira Glass gets it back: The New York Times reports on This American Life’s risky split from PRI and venture into the world of independent programming (and don’t worry—it doesn’t sound like the storytelling is going away).
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The House Sitter
If a novel depicted house sitters’ lives, its scenes would depict the complex relationship between the homeowner and sitter, the way trust is built between strangers in such an intimate setting as a home: how house keys are swapped, free food is provided or withheld. At the Paris Review, Aaron Gilbreath writes about his history of side jobs,…
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Elevator Protocol
Elevators, that common denominator of human anxiety, have a long history. David Trotter reviews Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator by Andreas Bernard: That’s what elevator protocol is for. Or so we might gather from the very large number of scenes set in lifts in movies from the 1930s onwards. The vast majority of these scenes involve…
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For Sale: Wallace Stevens Home
The distinct quietness of Wallace Stevens’s life—modernist, insurance salesman, writer of The Emperor of Ice Cream—is almost as famous as his poetry. Now! His 1920s Colonial home is for sale in Hartford, CT. If you’re looking for a spacious new house to raise a family in, or have a vested interest in historical preservation, maybe you…
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Before QWERTY
Before life on the iPad keypad there was life on the QWERTY computer keypad, and before that, the architecture of the typewriter. Dan Piepenbring reports on the history of the typewriter which was, ah yes, “rife with collaboration, ingenuity, betrayal, setbacks, lucre, acrimony, misguided experimentation, and bickering white men.”
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Applause, Applause
Is there, perhaps, something in your life which begs applause? Or maybe you want to help break a world record, or affirm strangers, or do you just like clapping? Rumpus contributor Dustin Luke Nelson is putting on two hours of unbroken applause at the Walker Art Center’s Open Field in Minneapolis on Thursday (6/26) from 5:30-7:30.…
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Between The Covers
Looking for a good new podcast? Check out Between The Covers! Hosted by David Naimon, it’s a literary radio broadcast/podcast for KBOO 90.7 FM in Portland, Oregon. The latest episode features our own Essays Editor Roxane Gay talking about trigger warnings, her new book, and television. Previous episodes have featured Sunday Editor Gina Frangello, contributor…
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Hands In Bleach
A classic Annie Dilliard-ism; “The way you spend your days/is the way you spend your life.” In the latest Oxford American, Southern poet Rebecca Gayle Howard—guest editor of the OA summer issue—talks about her writing process and how she spends her days: For me the writing life is much like any trade work: one part apprenticeship and…
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No Time To Be Neurotic
The Believer has just published what is likely writer Peter Matthiessen’s last interview, conducted only a month before his death. Included: Jaws, the sticker that Kurt Vonnegut left on Matthiessen’s car, and why Matthiessen didn’t like to write about New York: I also very rarely write about cities or urban people—especially urban people of our own region. ’Cause…
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Lost Words For A Spruce Tree
Over at The Hairpin, Isabelle Fraser interviews Ann Wroe, obituary writer for The Economist. Wroe has written obituaries for J.D. Salinger, Aaron Swartz, and the 25-year old carp that was “England’s best-loved fish”. On Marie Smith, the last person to speak Eyak, an Alaskan language, she relates: “She was the only person left who remembered all the different…
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To the Bar!
We’ve all gotten texts like these, though perhaps not from these particular writers… Jessie Gaynor’s “More Drunk Texts from Famous Authors,” over at the Paris Review, features the fictitious (and very buzzed) Roald Dahl, T.S Eliot, and William Blake, among others.
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An Evolutionary Love Story
One of Karen Russell’s favorite myths is the tale of Apollo and Daphne. Read about how it inspired her short story “The Bad Graft” and how she feels about the Joshua tree, here. Without boring everybody further, I was thrilled to learn about the ancient evolutionary love story between the Joshua tree and the yucca moth,…