The Airship
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On the Particular Origins of Some Literary Cliches
The phrase “little did she/he/they know” has plenty of history. The question is, when did it start being used for cheap suspense? The inversion of subject and verb sounds stilted and melodramatic, so the obvious culprit would be 19th century…
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The Beatles and Literature, Literature and The Beatles
The title of “I am the Walrus” also nods emphatically to Carroll’s poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter” — specifically to the walrus character, who expresses his remorse after devouring helpless oysters by crying at the poem’s end. Lennon confessed…
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Writing in Prison
Drugs and petty crime landed Daniel Genis in prison for ten years. He spent his term reading and working on his three-hundred page novel—but only after dropping $375 on a clear plastic typewriter, the only model he was allowed. Genis…
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Fundamentals of Korean Literature
The Airship offers us a quick lesson on Korean literature with this brief introduction to three seminal works, by Heo Gyun, Kim Yujeong, and Kim Sungok, spanning the 16th to 20th centuries.
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How Much Coffee Did Balzac Really Drink?
It has long been a favorite factoid of writers that Honoré de Balzac drank fifty cups of coffee a day. But is it true? The Airship’s Freddie Moore has put an admirable amount of research into investigating the claim, dividing…
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Kurt Vonnegut’s Crazy Amazing TV Show
A seemingly unemployed wannabe poet, Stony secures the opportunity by winning the “Blast-Off Space Food” jingle contest and, despite confused protest from his mother, is whisked away to undergo an intensive, three-month astronautic crash course. Would you believe us if…