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Reading Notes: Rivka Galchen’s American Innovations
Rivka Galchen: Canadian-born, Oklahoma-raised, New York City-dwelling author of a novel (Atmospheric Disturbances), a collection of stories (American Innovations) and the forthcoming Little Labors (New Directions, 17 May 2016). Her style is something of the whimsically eerie and she is one of those great writer’s writers who likes to be fairly clear (while also a…
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The 18th Edition of Montreal’s Blue Metropolis Festival
The sun is shining, the snow has melted, and Blue Metropolis just announced their 2016 program. Spring has come to Montreal! For those not familiar, Blue Met is the annual literary festival of the Blue Metropolis Foundation, which has been bringing people together in Montreal since 1997 to promote reading, writing, and education, focusing on…
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Mad Men en français, or Why Sally Draper is Really Important
A friend once described watching the AMC series Mad Men as an experience akin to reading well crafted postwar American short fiction. I thought that was a little excessive until I actually watched the show, which is exactly like well crafted postwar American short fiction. That’s not usually my jam. But the accessories are amazing and accessories…
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The Office Retirement Party
In the early days, people asked us questions like how long we would take off from work and had we researched daycares in the area. Had we read about attachment parenting? Would we let our baby cry it out? But other recent parents asked nothing about parenting at all. Instead, they asked us which television series…
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How to Feel Like a Visitor in Your Everyday World
Guys, we need to talk about Leena Krohn. As a longtime fan of Tove Jansson (creator of the Moomins) and Aki Kaurasmaki (go check out the Proletariat Trilogy and Le Havre right now), I was curious to see what other weird-and-wonderfuls Finland had to offer. Turns out, Finland has so much to offer and we’re just waiting…
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“Colours of Jazz” and Immigration in the 1920’s
It is interesting the way stories about art are told. In fact, I will just wallow in my obtuseness for a moment and say that, while I like to look at pretty things (and sometimes not-so-pretty-but-sort-of-interesting things), the stories are what interest me the most. My tendency at exhibits is to ogle the writing on the…
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On Blessing Someone’s Heart
The thing about deep cultural knowledge is that you don’t realize you have it until a piece of your culture gets appropriated. I have never considered myself particularly Southern, at least in the way that people take ‘Southern’ to mean. I do not frequently use y’all. When I ask for a Coke I do not mean some other…
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Merry Christmas Introverts – Grab a Book
Introverts have been receiving a lot of attention (ironic, no?) since Susan Cain’s book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking came out in 2012. It was kind of a thing. In fact, it was a ‘revolution’.* My internet world suddenly became filled with everything from “The Introvert’s Guide to Shoe Shopping” to…
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How to Become World Literate
What “world” are we talking about when we talk about “world literature”? We know it when we see it. It’s not France. It is definitely Africa. It might be Russia. But what about Finland? Or Puerto Rico? And what “literature” are we talking about? Do folktales count? Are comic books literature? What about religious texts?…
Indirect Libre
books etc., emphasis on the etc.
Indirect Libre 