Version 7.0ish. Digital Humanities. Running. Pedagogy. Linux.

• According to her monthly Web Site column, Jeanette Winterson is creating a children’s show for the BBC.
• Scott Esposito on the role of research in Infinite Jest.  Also see the comment section for some discussion from myself and others on the difference between the sort of notes Wallace and Borges created for their imaginary works.
• Jacket Copy on John Barth’s The Floating Opera
• Henry Jenkins on the role of fan fiction as critical commentary on texts.
• The new issue of Open Letters is, as always, worth your time.
  

• Jacket Copy links to Sports Illustrated archive, which offers writing from Don Delillo and William Faulkner.  I don’t think either piece is that interesting, but still pretty cool.
• The changing job description of librarians is covered in the New York Times.  I have been thinking about librarians a lot lately as I ponder my future.
• Bernie Sanders, in In These Times, on the failed legacy of Milton Friedman.
• The Guardian of all places has an article about the recent reissues of the classic Indiana hardcore band Zero Boys early work.  They also played a few shows in California last week; word from out there has been overwhelmingly positive about their performance.
• The Atlantic on how the Greeks treated soldiers returning from war.

Jacket Copy recently had a good post about the promise and perils of audio books. As I have mentioned before, I listen to a lot of audio books these days. One issue which they have that I seem to have successfully avoided is crappy narrators:

Another disaster lies in hiring one reader to do all the book’s voices. DiMeo cites Jim Dale, who reads the Harry Potter series, as the rare talent who can successfully portray more than one character without sounding hammy. I recall David Sedaris doing this well too, but then, Sedaris is another rare talent.

My favourites so far have been the actual authors reading their work. Whether Barack Obama (Hmm, need to get a post up about that) or Richard Dawkins (currently listening to The God Delusion) I think I have had the most success when the author is also the reader.

• Cool article from Gamestudies on simulating weather in video games and other virtual environments.
• Two articles on transgendered children: one from The American Prospect and another from The Atlantic.
• Dalkey Archive’s interview with Jean-Phillippe Toussaint.
• Stuart Moulthrop’s Pushing Back: Living & Writing In Broken Spaces.

Our video this week is a great find from Jacket Copy of Vladimir Nabokov being interviewed, righteously dissing Freud,  and reading, in English and Russian, from Lolita.  I can’t get it to embed properly, so click the link!

• Scott Esposito reviews Adolfo Bioy Casares’ The Invention Of Morel over at Boldtype.

• The New Yorker profiled Harold Pinter last winter.

Meanwhile…

• Jacket Copy covers Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, which just had a new book come out recently. I didn’t even know this series existed until recently but a lot of people seem to think it will be the heir to the Harry Potter series. But, seriously, a seventeen year old girl moves to a new town and falls in love with a vampire? I think I have seen this before. Hmm…

• Delicious (minus the dots) 2.0 has finally launched in the past few days. Ever since Firefox added tagging to their bookmarks I haven’t had a lot of use for it anymore, but I will check it out.

• George Orwell’s diaries are going to be blogged starting this week.

• Pinter’s Nobel lecture from 2005 is pretty righteous.