Today, the BBC reports, a specialist will examine four vaults in Zurich believed to contain the last works of Franz Kafka — part of an ongoing legal battle to determine who owns the texts, and if they should be published. It’s a story that has taken many twists and turns…
Dan Duray/New York Observer
Have you seen this website, I Write Like? It’s pretty simple: You paste some text, it “analyzes” the writing, and matches it to a famous author. So who does Mel Gibson rant like? What if I told you Margaret Atwood?
Max Read/Gawker
Seattle writer takes Bulwer-Lytton prize for sentence that compares rodent’s drinking habits to a romantic kiss
Associated Press
Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Exit Through the Gift Shop tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner.
Paranoid Pictures
From Peter Pan to James Bond, via The Man in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and JG Ballard’s alter ego, Jim, Tony Parsons chooses his favourite literary troubled males
When Time Magazine opened an Internet poll earlier this year to determine the “world’s most influential person,”[...] Han Han, a 27-year-old novelist, race car driver and bad boy teen heartthrob who also happens to be China’s most popular blogger, was second only to Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. Given the reach Mr. Han has among China’s 400 million Internet users, it could almost be considered an upset that he didn’t win the contest outright.
Mark MacKinnon/Globe and Mail
…for all ages?
The commonalities in methodology between poetry and science are what draw Adam to recognize and sometimes create a relationship between the oil and the water. He sees how both streams incorporate metaphorical thinking; how scientists and poets are forever using metaphors to make their findings/revelations understandable to the layman.
Dan Post / Geist
Here’s a wonderful, pleasant way to start your morning: well-edited video of Bill Murray, reading poetry to the construction workers of Poets House, which, if you don’t know (and many people don’t!), is lower Manhattan’s national poetry library. The video also has lovely music.
Foster Kamer/Village Voice
