From Barthelme to Vanderbilt

Maud’s giving away Barthelme! With delicious Pynchon intro, even.

I’m not the only one who had a visit from Maryann Burk Carver.

At the NEA’s Big Read blog, David Kipen invites your thoughts on elegies. David, cheer up. It’s February, is all.

Perhaps a yummy sea cucumber? Bookdwarf has a review of Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Peppers about China and food.

If you didn’t have time to read the weekend book reviews, Sarah has a fresh and tasty roundup.

A professor says that one of the world’s 6,000+ languages dies every two weeks, when its last speaker passes on. Imagine being the last person speaking your own language. Would you know? Would you walk around trying to say your world for sunshine, say, to endless bafflement?

The other Hollywood sign, rediscovered.

Mark finds promise in Gatsby catching on with the kids in this article. But unless I’m misremembering, the phrase “Boston Latin and other urban schools” is roughly equivalent to “Harvard and other underfunded community colleges.”

CAAF played hooky at a Vanderbilt estate (as a kid I went to this one).

About the author

I like sitting in Jack Webb's booth.