April 28, 2020 Comics The Scientific Erotica Book Club By Tom Gauld For the rest of the week, we’ll publish a strip each day from Tom Gauld’s new collection Department of Mind-Blowing Theories, in which the acclaimed cartoonist and illustrator trains his trademark wit on the wonderful world of science. Tom Gauld was born in 1976 and grew up in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. He is a cartoonist and illustrator, and his work is published in the Guardian, The New Yorker, and New Scientist. His comic books—Baking with Kafka, Mooncop, You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, and Goliath—are published by Drawn & Quarterly. He lives in London with his family. From Department of Mind-Blowing Theories, by Tom Gauld. Excerpt courtesy of Drawn & Quarterly.
April 27, 2020 The Art of Distance The Art of Distance No. 6 By The Paris Review In March, The Paris Review launched The Art of Distance, a newsletter highlighting unlocked archive pieces that resonate with the staff of the magazine, quarantine-appropriate writing on the Daily, resources from our peer organizations, and more. Read Emily Nemens’s introductory letter here, and find the latest unlocked archive pieces below. “In celebration of the warmer days soon to come, this installment of The Art of Distance is devoted to spring—to stories, poems, and other pieces that put us in mind of the season’s hope, bounty, and optimism. Spring has sprung in these pages, at least.” —Craig Morgan Teicher, Digital Director Photo: Dominicus Johannes Bergsma. I’m watching spring blossom through the window of my sister’s childhood bedroom; the sun is bright, the breeze is cold, and the birds are louder here than in Manhattan. Reading William Styron’s “Letter to an Editor,” the preface to issue no. 1, I imagine that the spring of 1953 was as crisp and as bright as this one. Styron’s letter is an anti-manifesto manifesto, a critique of criticism itself, its very syntax exuding a biting and springlike energy. He admits that all ideas fall subject to scrutiny when put to paper. He writes, “It’s inevitable that what Truth I mumble to you at Lipp’s over a beer, or that Ideal we are perfectly agreed upon at the casual hour of 2 A.M. becomes powerfully open to criticism as soon as it’s cast in a printed form which, like a piece of sculpture, allows us to walk all around that Truth or Ideal and examine it front, side, and behind, and for minutes on end.” Styron asks, however, that we try to put all that aside, resisting intellectual exercise and simply enjoying the patient work of writing and reading. —Elinor Hitt, Intern Read More
April 27, 2020 Arts & Culture What Rousseau Knew about Solitude By Gavin McCrea Allan Ramsay, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1766 In his last unfinished work, Reveries of the Solitary Walker, composed in the two years before his death in 1778, Jean-Jacques Rousseau set forth his vision for a writing life lived beyond the confines of community: “So now I am alone in the world, with no brother, neighbour or friend, nor any company left me but my own… [D]etached as I am from them and from the whole world, what am I? This must now be the object of my inquiry.” After a scandal erupted in 1762 about the unorthodox religion in one of his books, Rousseau spent the next eight years in exile from Paris, wandering around Switzerland, England, and the French provinces. Having previously occupied a place at the center of civilized society—secretary to the French ambassador in Venice, friend of the philosopher Diderot, protected by rich patrons, “acclaimed, made much of, and welcomed with open arms”—Rousseau became gripped by the paranoid belief that he was an object of universal derision. “The most sociable and loving of men has with one accord been cast out by all the rest. With all the ingenuity of hate they have sought out the cruellest torture for my sensitive soul, and have violently broken all the threads that bound me to them.” By the time he returned to Paris in 1770, Rousseau was one of the most famous men in Europe, known popularly by his first name and revered by many of his contemporaries. In spite of this celebrity, he chose to live quietly with his companion Thérèse in a modest flat near the Palais-Royal, occupying his time with music, botany, and country walks. “Alone for the rest of my life”—in Rousseau’s eyes, female companionship did not obviate his own special class of solitude—“since it is only in myself that I find consolation, hope and peace of mind, my only remaining duty is towards myself and this is all I desire… Let me give myself over entirely to the pleasure of conversing with my soul, since this is the only pleasure that men cannot take away from me.” Claiming to be no longer concerned about his reputation—“the desire to be better known to men has died in my heart”—Rousseau decided that his next project would be a simple one: he would walk, he would think, he would write down the thoughts that came to him. His Reveries would be nothing less than a faithful record of his friendless perambulations and the daydreams which occupied them. “I will give free rein to my thoughts and let my ideas follow their natural course, unrestricted and unconfined. These hours of solitude and meditation are the only ones in the day when I am completely myself and my own master, with nothing to distract or hinder me, the only ones when I can truly say that I am what nature meant me to be.” In Rousseau’s scheme of things, solitude was the natural human state. By stepping outside of society, by distancing oneself from other voices, one was facilitating a return to oneself. But being with oneself is one thing; writing about the state of being with oneself, another. There are ten walks in the Reveries (“First Walk,” “Second Walk,” et cetera), and although some of them may well record the thoughts that occurred to Rousseau as he ambled around Paris, what they amount to are carefully crafted reflections on his life and earlier writing. The Reveries are not the spontaneous jottings of a dreamer, nor do they attempt to mount an illusion of such spontaneity. Rather, they are the work of a stationary body—a bent back, a cramped wrist, a strained eye, an aching temple—as it worked to broaden and deepen certain fleeting images, particular flashes of insight, into a sustained, intelligible vision. Read More
April 24, 2020 This Week’s Reading Staff Picks: Kentuckis, Kerchiefs, and Choreography By The Paris Review Samanta Schweblin. Photo: © Alejandra López. There has always been art that appears, in retrospect, to have been eerily prescient—Andy Warhol’s 1968 prediction of “fifteen minutes of fame,” say, or Umberto Romano’s 1937 painting of a figure checking their smartphone. Samanta Schweblin’s Little Eyes, published in the original Spanish in 2018 and due out from Riverhead in Megan McDowell’s translation May 5, is this kind of visionary: a novel of a near-future dystopia that has suddenly, in the months before its U.S. publication, become nearer still. Unraveling the premise is the pleasure of this book, but in briefest summary: a new toy called a kentuki appears on the market. Consumers can choose to own these stuffed animals, who move around on wheels and have cameras for eyes, or to “dwell” in them—purchasing a connection that allows users, from their computers or tablets, to control the toy’s movements and see what it sees. Each kentuki can form only a single connection, randomly assigned to people around the world, and when it is disconnected, the object becomes disposable. Indeed, the entire pleasure of the toy is built not on its possibilities but on its limitations: the dwellers cannot speak to the owners, though they can hear what is said to them. From within these confines, a global obsession emerges. Dwellers remain at home in front of their screens for days, hypnotized by their kentukis’ quotidian lives on the other side of the planet. Society divides into watchers and those who desire to be watched. The seemingly simple technology is inevitably bent to hold all of human nature—it becomes a cure against modern loneliness, a political tool, an entrepreneurial possibility (an industry of kentuki accessories springs up), a tool for blackmail, and, of course, a way to fulfill our basest desires (on the black market, pedophiles purchase connections to kentukis that dwell in homes with children). Each chapter is headed by the name of a city—Oaxaca, Zagreb, Vancouver, Lima—and the reader flits in and out of lives around the world, forced to confront the voyeurism that is the essence of fiction. At a time when most of us are indoors, reaching for one another through our screens, I can think of no book that more clearly illustrates how close, yet far, that still leaves us. —Nadja Spiegelman Read More
April 24, 2020 Poets on Couches Poets on Couches: Major Jackson By Major Jackson In this series of videograms, poets read and discuss the poems getting them through these strange times—broadcasting straight from their couches to yours. These readings bring intimacy into our spaces of isolation, both through the affinity of poetry and through the warmth of being able to speak to each other across the distances. “Coral” by Kamau Brathwaite Issue no. 231 (Winter 2019) Read More
April 24, 2020 Department of Tomfoolery Our Motto By Maira Kalman © Maira Kalman I am upstate with my son, Alex, and his wife, also named Alex. Like everyone else on planet earth, we are thinking nonstop about the future. The economy. The forces of good and evil. About the meaning of time and, of course, life and death. There is also another subject on my mind: paper towels. Specifically Bounty Select-A-Size paper towels. This is not a new interest for me. I have loved Bounty Select-A-Size for a long time. I have always been impressed and dazzled by this bit of American language and American ingenuity. You can choose the size of the paper towel you need. Not too much, not too little. How did we function before this? The promises, slogans, and jingles of American products have populated my life since I arrived in this country in 1954. Every one of us has their favorites. PLOP PLOP FIZZ FIZZ OH WHAT A RELIEF IT IS; YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE JEWISH TO LOVE LEVY’S; I KNOW YOU HAVE A HEADACHE, BUT DON’T TAKE IT OUT ON HER; LIKE A GAL NEEDS A GUY, LIKE AN X NEEDS A Y, LIKE ALMOST ANY FOOD NEED RITZ. I want to know who invented Select-A-Size? When? Why? And when did Brawny come up with their competitive Tear-A-Square? Which is not bad. Poetry in motion. Last night, with a lull in my schedule, I wrote an email to Procter & Gamble, the parent company of Bounty. I acknowledged that in such dismal times my question might seem frivolous, but asked if they could supply the answer. I received an immediate auto-response. If I was a journalist with an urgent deadline… but if not… Since I was in the latter category, I did not expect a response. But still I woke up in the middle of the night to check my email, just in case they had written back. I imagined a P&G archivist/historian of all paper products, alone in a huge building, responding with precision and thoughtfulness to my query. Alas, still no reply. Read More