What we read while not writing anything….
- The New York Times Magazine’s profile on David Mitchell is one of our favorite features on one of one of us’s favorite authors. Our favorite part from Wyatt Mason’s look at Mitchell: “When writing is great, Mitchell told me of the books he loved as a reader, ‘your mind is nowhere else but in this world that started off in the mind of another human being. There are two miracles at work here. One, that someone thought of that world and people in the first place. And the second, that there’s this means of transmitting it. Just little ink marks on squashed wood fiber. Bloody amazing.’”
- Speaking of books, The Millions has a whole new page devoted to its exhaustive catalog of reviews. And Pierre gets a shout-out on the back pages of the NYT‘s Book Review.
- Monday Medley regular Jason Segel talks to GQ about How I Met Your Mother, muppets, and various other things.
- Last week we linked to Philadelphia Magazine‘s profile of Buzz Bissinger, which asked why the former Pulitzer Prize winner was so angry. This week, we link to Bissinger’s own indirect response from The New Republic, in which he explains why he loves Twitter: “I am an angry man, which is one of the reasons I have resumed therapy and take four different pharmaceuticals. I wake up angry, stay angry during the day except to my dog and children, and go to bed angry at night. Most of my anger amounted to a running dialogue of abuse and self-abuse while working alone at home. But with Twitter, I now had an outlet.”
- Michael Cera as the “ultimate Canadian superhero.”
- Michael Wilbon gives commencement address, quotes Mike Tyson.
- Arizona passed a controversial immigration law a few months ago, which can only mean one thing: Protest songs! One from Chuck D and one from Conor Oberst.
- Elena Kagan’s email inbox from her time serving the Clinton administration has been made accessible in user-friendly Gmail-like fashion. You can learn things like Kagan’s lack of vacation plans. Transparency is cool and all, but this may be a little excessive.
- Artificial Intelligence is also cool and all, and this latest advancement is by no means excessive.
Filed under: Monday Medley
