All posts filed under: Literature

Headline Rhymes

Published by Graham Verdon

Some insist we’re a blank slate on which we write what we want Others say we’re a Kindle book where all we can change is the font I’m not slate nor tablet I’m more hat and rabbit Views on the news, delivered so smooth. This week’s inspired by: I Am Not a Blank Page A Striking Similarity: The Revolutionary Findings of Twin Studies Click for last week’s edition. And for more Headline Rhymes, follow along on Twitter @grahamverdon Do you have a Headline Rhyme? Take a stab in the Comments Section below. Please try for PG 13. Sentiments are not necessarily shared by everyone at Quillette.

Headline Rhymes

Published by Graham Verdon

Sad is the author who’s written a magnum opus About the moving spirit of Christmas Lamb to the slaughter if the kin of Mary and Joseph Are disapproving; enjoy the literary shit list Views on the news, delivered so smooth. This week’s inspired by: Writing For Quillette Ended My Theater Project If That’s What It Means to Be a Writer, I Quit Click for last week’s edition. And for more Headline Rhymes, follow along on Twitter @grahamverdon Do you have a Headline Rhyme? Take a stab in the Comments Section below. Please try for PG 13. Sentiments are not necessarily shared by everyone at Quillette.

Headline Rhymes

Published by Graham Verdon

A Thanksgiving prayer for mercy As the family screamed, Jesus Murphy! Drank quite enough Told opponents: Get stuffed! Then claimed you just meant the turkey (Don’t be that political guy Have a slice of humble pie…) Views on the news, delivered so smooth. This week’s inspired by: Our Tribes and Tribulations Political Moderates Are Lying Click for last week’s edition. And for more Headline Rhymes, follow along on Twitter @grahamverdon Do you have a Headline Rhyme? Take a stab in the Comments Section below. Please try for PG 13. Sentiments are not necessarily shared by everyone at Quillette.

Headline Rhymes

Published by Graham Verdon

Man sues to reduce his age, like genders are sometimes changed, and is clearly on the right track And so I’m fighting hard to get my Starbucks card accepted as an AmEx Black Views on the news, delivered in twos. This week’s inspired by: Trans Activists’ Campaign Against ‘TERFs’ has Become an Attack on Science Schrödinger’s (Wo)Manhood Click for last week’s edition. And for more Headline Rhymes, follow along on Twitter @grahamverdon Do you have a Headline Rhyme? Take a stab in the Comments Section below. Please try for PG 13. Sentiments are not necessarily shared by everyone at Quillette.

A Glimpse Into the Ideological Monoculture of Literary New York

Published by Matthew Binder

In the Spring of 2016, I fell into a conversation with my brother about how automation and artificial intelligence were making many forms of human labor obsolete. It wasn’t just an economic problem, I observed: Without meaningful work to do, a lot of us would fall victim to boredom and vice. My brother, an oncologist, countered that people would simply have to work harder to cultivate the diminishing number of jobs that machines couldn’t do. When he cited his own occupation as an example, I pointed out that in 20 years, AI-enabled computers might be able to make better medical decisions than he could. (In some areas of medicine, this is already happening.) He disagreed. But out of our discussion came my idea for a soon-to-published novel, set in 2036, about Henri, a wealthy doctor at risk of having his job taken by a robot. As Quillette writer Gabriel Scorgie noted recently, it’s become difficult for beginning writers to get book contracts. But I dove in, nonetheless. At the time, I was living in Albuquerque, …

The Novel Isn’t Dead—Please Stop Writing Eulogies

Published by Gabriel Scorgie

The 69th National Book Awards Ceremony will take place this Wednesday in New York City. Nominees for the Fiction award include Brandon Hobson’s novel Where the Dead Sit Talking, Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers and Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend—all excellent and acclaimed specimens of a literary genre that English novelist J. B. Priestley had called a “decaying literary form” even before Nelson Algren’s The Man With the Golden Arm won the inaugural National Book Award for Fiction back in 1950. Two decades later, postmodernist American author John Barth argued in The Literature of Exhaustion that the novel may have “by this hour of the world just about shot its bolt.” He won a National Book Award six years later for Chimera. More recently, Zadie Smith discussed her “novel nausea” while paraphrasing David Shields’ description of the crafted novel, “with its neat design and completist attitude,” as being “dull and generic.” Her most recent novel, Swing Time, made last year’s National Book Award longlist. None of these obituarists seem to agree on the novel’s hour of …

From To Kill A Mockingbird to Ballet Shoes: A Plea to Save Children’s Literature

Published by Carla Wilson

The Peel District School Board straddles the outskirts of the Greater Toronto Area, with more than 150,000 students enrolled in its elementary and secondary schools. Visible minorities make up more than half of this culturally and linguistically rich catchment area. And occasionally, local controversy erupts when the progressive mandate of the provincially-run education system accelerates headlong into the more conservative attitudes of local parents, especially when it comes to sex education. Indeed, Ontario Premier Doug Ford campaigned successfully on a promise to roll back the most progressive elements of the curriculum put in place by the previous (Liberal) government. But the problem runs deeper than discussions of birth control and safe sex: A recent Peel District controversy over Harper Lee’s classic 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird shows how wide this gulf has grown between ordinary parents and the professional class that presumes to oversee the educational system. “To Kill a Mockingbird may only be taught in Peel secondary schools, beginning this school year, if instruction occurs through a critical, anti-oppression lens,” declared the School …

Headline Rhymes

Published by Graham Verdon

Everyone conflating words with violence really needs to stop You’re why CNN’s mic drop is playing like a Bruce Lee chop Views on the news, delivered in twos. This week’s presented with no disrespect intended toward any victims of senseless violence. Inspired in part by recent articles about growing political polarization: Blame Modern Life for Political Strife A Mania for All Seasons: The Continuing Importance of ‘The Devils of Loudun’ Click for last week’s edition. And for more Headline Rhymes, follow along on Twitter @grahamverdon Do you have a Headline Rhyme? Take a stab in the Comments Section below. Please try for PG 13. Sentiments are not necessarily shared by everyone at Quillette.

Headline Rhymes

Published by Graham Verdon

News empires and Trump’s army arguing whose hands are redder Is like vampires fighting zombies over which one is deader Views on the news, delivered in twos. This week’s presented with no disrespect intended toward any victims of senseless violence. Inspired in part by recent articles about the growing political polarization: What Can Artificial Intelligence Teach Us About Political Polarization? Nazis: A Modern Field Guide Click for last week’s edition. And for more Headline Rhymes, follow along on Twitter @grahamverdon Do you have a Headline Rhyme? Take a stab in the Comments Section below. Please try for PG 13. Sentiments are not necessarily shared by everyone at Quillette.

Headline Rhymes

Published by Graham Verdon

I decided to play it safe this year and not dress up for Halloween The Woke still said white hate was clear and my racist costume mean Views on the news, delivered in twos. This week’s inspired by: Dear Millennial… Rejecting Progress in the Name of ‘Cultural Appropriation’ Click for last week’s edition. And for more Headline Rhymes, follow along on Twitter @grahamverdon Do you have a Headline Rhyme? Take a stab in the Comments Section below. Please try for PG 13. Sentiments are not necessarily shared by everyone at Quillette.