Falling in love is a real thing, especially with books. We should all be so lucky to love as hard as Anna Wiener does Renata Adler’s Speedboat: “Upon the first reading, during that gray and yawning time, I no longer wanted to see the world for another person; I wanted to see it refracted through Adler’s telling.” The novel will be put back into print by NYRB Classics in March, and I couldn’t be more excited.
Slate reviewed Elliot Holt’s Twitter Fiction Festival story, and made some points about why Jennifer Egan’s earlier attempt at Twitter fiction, “Black Box,” wasn’t the best fit for the form. I wrote a bit about Twitter fiction and the festival here yesterday.
Using “xo” to close an email is more frequently a woman thing than a man thing. It’s even used, however infrequently, in tweets. According to this Atlantic article, “[a]mong Twitter users, 11 percent of women xo in tweets, compared with only 2.5 percent of men.” According to this n+1 article, the Atlantic conflates women with the digital, and is pursuing female readers like we’re going out of style. I wonder what The Baffler would say about all this, seeing as it’s a mag for mag (and mag criticism) lovers.
Forks, Spoons, and Anxiety: “Our silverware drawers—like our kitchens—are palimpsests of memory, tradition, and technology.”
