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New Yorker

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Jonathan Lethem, "Lostronaut"

Good morning everyone. The short story in the latest New Yorker written by Jonathan Lethem is a startling pick for the magazine. When was the last time you read science-fiction in the New Yorker??

Told in a series of letters written by a female astronaut stranded in a space station to her signficant other, Chase living in New York, this excerpt is sure to get your day started on just the right depressing note!

We’re soaring atoms, Chase, that’s what orbit consists of, the inhuman hastening of infinitesimal specklike bodies through an awesome indifferent void, yet in our cramped homely craft, its rooms named to evoke childhood comforts, with our blobs of toothpaste drifting between our brushes and the mirror, our farts and halitosis filling the chambers with odor, we’ve defaulted to an illusion of substance. Inside Northern Lights, we’ve managed to kid ourselves that we exist, that we’re curvaceous or lumpy or angular, bristling with hair and snot, taking up a certain amount of room, and that space and time have generously accorded a margin in which we’re invited to operate these sizable greedy bodies of ours, a margin in which to dwell, to hang out and live our pale stinky stories.

Read story here.

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Murakami at New Yorker Festival

I really wanted to see one of my all time favorite contemporary authors, Haruki Murakami speak at the New Yorker Festival, but I couldn't get tickets (Tickets sold out in eleven minutes!).

On stage, the writer belied his rock-star reputation, glancing shyly at his feet. He began by telling the story of a jazzman who, when accused of playing “just like Charlie Parker,” handed his saxophone to his critic and said, “Here—you try playing like Charlie Parker.” He said that we should draw three conclusions from this...

Read more here.

Previously.

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