The Millions » Curiosities

Remember This?

Thomas Beckwith — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:00:13 +0000

Before his death of natural causes in 2008, Henry Gustave Molaison had the world’s most famous brain. At 27, Molaison permanently lost the ability to form new memories, which led to him spending the rest of his life in “thirty-second loops of awareness.” In the LRB, Mike Jay reviews a new book on Molaison, Permanent Present Tense.

Longreads.edu

Nick Moran — Sun, 19 May 2013 19:00:30 +0000

The Longreads team has teamed up with Syracuse assistant professor Aileen Gallagher in order to “search for and share outstanding student work.” If you’ve read (or written) something fantastic this past school year, they encourage you to tag it #college #longreads on Twitter or Tumblr.

With Very Small Font, Of Course

Nick Moran — Sun, 19 May 2013 18:00:31 +0000

Ireland debuted a new stamp featuring a 224-word short story written by Dublin teenager Eoin Moore.

“The Book Was Better.” Or Was It?

Nick Moran — Sun, 19 May 2013 16:00:00 +0000

Did Baz Lurhmann’s Great Gatsby adaptation leave you feeling a little disappointed? Then consider Kate Kelsall’s short list of “utterly compelling cinematic adaptations” to be just what the doctor ordered.

New Lorrie Moore on the Way

Nick Moran — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:00:29 +0000

Publicity bigwig Paul Bogaards spilled the beans on Twitter Thursday night: Lorrie Moore has a new short fiction collection in the pipeline. It’s slated for March 2014 release.

Hard Choices

Nick Moran — Sun, 19 May 2013 14:00:43 +0000

Recommended Listening: David Sedaris presented three short stories while guest hosting WNYC’s Selected Shorts. The three stories were written by Amy Hempel, Tobias Wolff, and Frank Gannon, and each one has to do with “hard choices,” says Sedaris.

What the World Eats

Nick Moran — Sat, 18 May 2013 19:00:39 +0000

Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio photographed 30 families in 24 countries, each time surrounding their subjects with their weekly food purchases. Their work was collected in their What the World Eats photo album, but you can take a look at some of their pictures over here.

Raise a Glass to That

Nick Moran — Sat, 18 May 2013 18:00:06 +0000

Pop Chart Lab’s latest creation depicts some of the most famous cocktail-and-character pairings in literature and film. The gamut runs from Daisy Buchanan’s Mint Julep to The Dude’s White Russian. (Of course, the Preakness Stakes are this weekend, so really you should be drinking Black Eyed Susans.)

Is Humbert Humbert Jewish?

Nick Moran — Sat, 18 May 2013 16:00:53 +0000

“What [Vladimir] Nabokov is actually doing in Lolita is deliberately drawing on all manner of anti-Semitic propaganda, from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to Nazi caricatures of the Jewish ‘type,’ to create in Humbert Humbert the anti-Semitic cliché of legend, rather as, say, Chaucer draws on medieval misogynist writings to create in the figure of the Wife of Bath the archetypal shrew of his male audience’s nightmares.”

Pete Campbell is Mr. Darcy

Nick Moran — Sat, 18 May 2013 15:00:18 +0000

This summer, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis will put on a stage production of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. As they always say: it’s all fun and games until you cast Vincent Kartheiser as Mr. Darcy.