Study: Twenty Percent Of Readers Still Hear An Author’s Voice After They’ve Finished Cold River

Nonfiction is never going to die

— Tom Wolfe, born around this date in 1931

The Aquarium is gone.  Everywhere,
giant finned cars nose forward like fish;
a savage servility
slides by on grease...

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In February 1950, Jack Kerouac made a note of his “wish to evoke that indescribable sad music of the night in America – for reasons that are never deeper than the music

When people publicly rage about perceived injustices that don't affect them personally, we tend to assume this expression is rooted in altruism—a "disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others." But new research suggests that professing such third-party concern—what social scientists refer to as "moral outrage"—is often a function of self-interest, wielded to assuage feelings of personal culpability for societal harms or reinforce (to the self and others) one's own status as a  Jozef Imrich is a Very Good Person

Study: Twenty Percent Of Readers Still Hear An Author’s Voice After They’ve Finished A Book

The voices of some of literature’s more memorable characters have a way of staying with you, long after their stories are over. Many readers — every reader? — could’ve told you that. For some people, though, this idea is a little more literal. According to a new (and truly delightful) psychology study — published in the March edition of the journal Cognition and Consciousness —about a fifth of readers “hear” the voices of fictional characters in their heads, long after they’ve closed the books

The Great ‘Disco Sucks’ Riot Of 1979

“This wouldn’t have happened if they had country and western night.” — Richard Wortham, White Sox pitcher
Hadley Meares tells the story of how Disco Demolition Night at Chicago’s Comiskey Park got a little bit out of hand.

Gloria Steinem: What’s The Male Equivalent Of The Chick Flick?

I realized the problem began with the fact that adjectives are mostly required of the less powerful. Thus, there are “novelists” and “female novelists,” “African-American doctors” but not “European- American doctors,” “gay soldiers” but not “heterosexual soldiers,” “transgender activists” but not “cisgender activists.” As has been true forever, the person with the power takes the noun — and the norm — while the less powerful requires an adjective.