http://www.themillions.com Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:52:57 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In those first years the roads were filled with refugees huddled in their rags.  Filthy anoraks, torn and dustshraffled Starterjackets.  Masked and mittened, tatterslumped on the macadam.  Ruined hitchhikers on a boak and godless freeway.  Their barrows heavy with shoom, dented pails of dirthat.  Towing carts or wagons.  On tandembikes ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/03/the-road-a-comedic-translation-part-4.html In late 2001 among the people I knew, cellphones went from being a gadget of the technorati to something that everyone had.  I was living in a dorm with five roommates at the time and one consequence of the change was that we no longer ever spoke with each other’s ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/02/in-our-parents-bookshelves.html In my parents' home, tucked into the bottom drawer of the dresser in the spare room, there's a small stack of papers bound together with a rubber band. I stumbled upon this last week. The rubber band virtually disintegrated as I began to flip through the pages. There, in my hand, were long, hand-written ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/02/linked-by-words-uncovering-a-piece-of-family-history.html 1. I’m not a gamer, in any conventional sense. I like Brickbreaker, that insanely addictive game that seems to come standard on the Blackberry, and I can lose myself for twenty minutes or so in Tetris, especially if I’m on an airplane, but that’s about the extent of it. There are ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/02/every-day-the-same-dream.html The roadside hedges were gone to rows of black and twisted brambles. Burnt matchstick limbs, frail and carcassed treetrunks. A gray pond lay near the low bomus of a sorghumfield, its yieldless surface oily and wan. Ruminant bones in a shallow rocky ditchrun, faint scattered nothing. ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/01/the-road-a-comedic-translation-part-3.html My winter reading project this year is War and Peace. On an average night I make it through 15-20 pages before I become too tired to follow the story anymore. At this rate I should be done by Easter. I have read Anna Karenina and The Death Ivan ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/01/selections-from-a-winter-reading-war-and-peace.html In 2007 and 2008, Frank Kovarik, who writes and teaches English in St. Louis, sent us a spreadsheet that he has used to catalog New Yorker fiction since 2003, and now, with another year of data included, we're going to revisit it.Frank's spreadsheet records not just the titles and authors ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/01/new-yorker-fiction-by-the-numbers.html They passed through the city the day following. He kept the pistol to hand and held the boy close to his side. The city was blackened, burned to completion. No sign of life. Not a hobo nor trollop, tourist nor knishvendor. Cars swimbled with ash, ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/12/the-road-a-comedic-translation-part-2.html If Carl Jung had lived to see Google Search, he might have had a thing or two to say about how its auto suggest function is revealing the Internet's collective unconscious. For those who don’t know, auto suggest is a handy feature that helps you search when you don’t know ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/12/you-autocomplete-me.html For the President's brother, you would think it would be pretty easy to get your first novel published. Especially when that novel includes a thinly fictionalized account of life with the President's father. You'd be wrong, though. Such is the case of Obama's half-brother, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo, who today ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/11/obamas-brother-publishes-a-novel.html