literature

Interesting article in the Boston Phoenix yesterday noted the growing improtance of hotness to what we consider literary talent, which makes it the only article I've ever read in the newspaper that caused me to make a haircut appointment:

"Literature, unlike so many other media industries, is technically a meritocracy. But that won’t stop book marketers, bloggers, critics, and the literary community at large from collectively slobbering over a pretty author. No, the literary rules changed ages ago. Books no longer need to be serious in order to be published; there are fewer and fewer venues available for reviews (rendering competition more intense with every passing catalogue season), and critics aren’t doing their job unless they are merciless."

The Chicago Underground Library is pleased to announce Orphan Works, a new reinterpretation series. Unlike traditional reading series, our performers are not reading from their own work. Some of them won’t even be reading. We’re calling upon a variety of the most creative minds in Chicago to burrow deep into our collection of anonymous works or ones for which no further information on the author can be found. Commonly referred to as “Orphan Works,” these lost publications will be brought back to life: read, reinterpreted, and reunited with the audience they’ve been missing. There is an ongoing debate on the status of works like these, and a number of groups and individuals are fighting to keep them free for creative reuse and artistic exploration.

Mine's not that bad.

I was in class tonight and we were discussing John Keats and "Endymion". Apparently this concept of life experiences being the composition of a soul and and that in order to acheive happiness in Heaven you needed to fully live life to the extreme (Mountain Dew not required), because souls don't transcend on their own, duh.