Welcome to the Age of The Beautiful Weirdos

this morning the lady across from
me in the waiting room asked me
if I was ready for things
to “get back to normal”

I smiled and shook my head

“I wasn’t very good at normal,” I told her.
“I’d like the give weird a bit of a try.”

She blinked.
I blinked back.

things had gotten awkward
I always make things awkward

She blinked again.
I responded with another blink.

We were now communicating
through eyelash morse code.

So I blinked the following message to her:

I’m not waiting for things
to go back to normal

things are already
way too ordinary for me
to wish for it to have
any more of a hold over me

to be honest,
I’m waiting for things
to become more abnormal

normal had its time as the DJ
normal played the same songs over and over

typical’s reign as the queen has gone on for so long
that her crown has begun to grow into her skin

I know you can sense it, too
this cocoon we are living in
is starting to quiver and our
skin is starting to turn into
Read more »

Chris Moss in Prospect Magazine:

How has India’s emergence as an economic power reshaped its cultural life? What is the moral price of literary fame? Are the artistic and publishing worlds merely branches of international finance? These are some of the big questions tackled in Pankaj Mishra’s new novel—his first in 20 years. The early chapters read like a series of lofty essays smuggled into a rambling story. But it develops into a multi-layered novel, bursting with ideas.

Arun and Aseem are two young working-class men from railway towns who get into the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology. After graduation, they both ride the wave of globalisation. But while their fellow students follow the career path of real-life business “god” Rajat Gupta—the MD of McKinsey who was later imprisoned for securities fraud—Arun becomes a respected Hindi translator and Aseem a successful Anglophone writer, editor and all-round impresario. Both are drawn into the orbit of brilliant and beautiful people. There is more than a whiff of The Great Gatsby in the endless round of swish parties in London and the Hamptons attended by wealthy and more or less corrupt individuals, joined by an Indian expat elite whose cultural tastes and political postures are dictated by social media. Alia, a former model turned author, is the alluring epitome of this deracinated circle.

More here.

Ewen Callaway in Nature:

In 2019, neuroscientist Scott Marek was asked to contribute a paper to a journal that focuses on child development. Previous studies had shown that differences in brain function between children were linked with performance in intelligence tests. So Marek decided to examine this trend in 2,000 kids. Brain-imaging data sets had been swelling in size. To show that this growth was making studies more reliable, Marek, based at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri (WashU), and his colleagues split the data in two and ran the same analysis on each subset, expecting the results to match. Instead, they found the opposite. “I was shocked. I thought it was going to look exactly the same in both sets,” says Marek. “I stared out of my apartment window in depression, taking in what it meant for the field.”

Now, in a bombshell 16 March Nature study¹, Marek and his colleagues show that even large brain-imaging studies, such as his, are still too small to reliably detect most links between brain function and behaviour.

As a result, the conclusions of most published ‘brain-wide association studies’ — typically involving dozens to hundreds of participants — might be wrong. Such studies link variations in brain structure and activity to differences in cognitive ability, mental health and other behavioural traits. For instance, numerous studies have identified brain anatomy or activity patterns that, the studies say, can distinguish people who have been diagnosed with depression from those who have not. Studies also often seek biomarkers for behavioural traits.

More here.

Aja Romano at Vox:

So if the traditional artistic contempt for romance as a genre has buckled under the sheer weight of audience demand, then surely Heyer, of all authors, ought to be first in line for adaptation. Stephen Fry considers this in his introduction to Venetia, only he suggests that the delights of her prose — her infectious dialogue, her constantly surprising turns of phrase, her sparkling humor, and her subtle but satisfying romantic relationships — make her too difficult to adapt. “My own view,” he writes, “is that her apparent unsuitability for dramatisation might be for the very reason that … [her] gifts and glories reveal themselves most perfectly in the act of reading.”

Yet Heyer’s prose would arguably find its way onscreen anyway. Witness Damarel and Venetia, in one of their sexy wordplay volleys: “‘Spiteful little cat!’ he said appreciatively.” That’s a juicy stage direction for an actor.

more here.

Vikrant Dadawala at The Point:

In his more mature fiction, Gurnah returns obsessively to what feels like an endlessly extending late colonial moment, stretching from the late nineteenth century to the Revolution of 1964. It is in this moment that Gurnah’s world seems to be forged and lost; what comes after independence feels more like an epilogue than the start of something new. The sense of standing with one’s feet in the sand during a retreating tide, as magic disappears from the physical universe, is at the heart of Gurnah’s masterpieces: Paradise (1994), Desertion and Afterlives (2020). All three books linger with strange encounters in late colonial Africa: Sikhs and Muslims in lonely trading outposts debating the exact geographical location of Paradise; a European Orientalist stumbling out of the desert, alone and empty-handed, into the arms of a pious shopkeeper in a coastal town; the askaris of the German Schutztruppe and the soldiers of the British Indian army pursuing each other in long marches through the countryside.

more here.

Jonaki Mehta from NPR (All Things Considered):

Remnants of a party linger inside Arooj Aftab’s Brooklyn brownstone on a gloomy winter day: Slightly deflated balloons in metallic purple, red and gold hover against the ceiling of her living room, and a well-used ashtray sits on her patio table. Against one wall, a banner reads “TWO TIME GRAMMY NOMINEE LIVES HERE” in big, bold letters. It is mid-December, just a few days after she heard the news. “I did not get this myself and, like, put it up,” Aftab says, chuckling as she points to the banner. Her friends had bought it for the party they threw to celebrate Aftab’s nominations for Best New Artist and Best Global Performance for her song “Mohabbat.” Aftab has lived in this apartment for more than six years. She shares it with her partner, roommate, and Tuna, a feral cat she took in as her own. She has spent a lot of time here, ruminating, writing, rehearsing and occasionally recording music— some of which is on her 2021 album Vulture Prince.

…She draws inspiration from the likes of Abida Parveen — “the queen of Sufi music” — famed jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, and minimalist composer Terry Riley. Yet while her influences span genres and generations, Aftab says she didn’t listen to any music while making her latest album. “It distracts you from your own voice,” she sums up neatly.

More here.

To the Ashes

We’re heading into the night. We’re shadows of ash
on transparent stallions.
The piebalds won’t budge.
They just wail and burn.

Whip the horses and see the scars,
scoop water from an empty pail.
Behind us, nothing but loss.
Sail off, but where to? – nothing around but soot.

Our dead are everywhere –
in the trees, blossoms and fetes.
That same ash in their mouths
won’t let them wake from death.

The light floods in, but wait; it’s hard
when night falls from your eyes.
When coals in place of hearts
die out and quickly turn to dust.

by Anzhelina Polonskaya

from To the Ashes
translation: Andrew Wachtel
Zephyr Press, Brookline, 2019

Original Russian @ Read More:

Read more »

Cathryn Jakobson Ramin in Nautilus:

Travis Gustavson died in February, 2021 in Mankato, Minnesota at the age of 21. The morning of the day he died, he had a tooth pulled at the dentist’s office. Due to a drug history, the doctors didn’t prescribe him strong painkillers, so he was planning to white knuckle it through the day with ibuprofen, according to his mother. Instead, he called a guy who sold him illegal street heroin and fentanyl. In a text to the dealer, Gustavson sent a photo of the amount he planned to take and asked if he had gotten the dose right. “Smaller bro” and “be careful plz!” the dealer wrote back. Gustavson overdosed.

Gustavson, whose death was reported in the L.A. Times,¹ is one of the many casualties of an opioid crisis that has ravaged the United States for over two decades. Opioid overdose deaths have claimed more than 600,000 lives in the U.S. and Canada since 1999, more than were lost in World War I and II combined. In both countries, 2020 was the worst year on record, in terms of total deaths and percentage increase from the previous year, precipitated in part by the anxiety, stress, and isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

More here.

Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy in Literary Hub:

In a Supreme Court ruling released last week, dissenting Justice Neil Gorsuch stated that the story of CIA detainee Abu Zubaydah’s time at a black site in Poland, where he and others were tortured by a team led by James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, contracted to the CIA, remained incomplete even though 20 years has passed. “While we know that the CIA held Zubaydah at Detention Site Blue from December 2002 until September 2003, and while we know that the site was in Poland, what happened to him there remains unclear,” said Gorsuch.

The forthcoming book, The Forever Prisoner (to be published on April 12 by Atlantic Monthly Press) fills in many of the blanks about what happened at the black site Stare Kiejkuty. James Mitchell speaks much more candidly than he ever did in his own 2016 CIA-approved book, Enhanced Interrogation, or in the recent Alex Gibney-directed documentary, also titled The Forever Prisoner.

More here.

Leslie Roberts in Nature:

Adding to the brutal, immediate effects of Russia’s invasion, the Ukrainian people are facing an onslaught of infectious diseases. Some threats — such as the spread of COVID-19 — are immediate, as people huddle in basements, subway stations and temporary shelters to protect themselves from bombardments. Without adequate water and sanitation, cases of diarrhoeal diseases are certain to rise. The risk of polio and measles outbreaks is high. And as health facilities and roads are reduced to rubble, access to diagnostic services and treatments for tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/AIDS is being interrupted, which will add to their already sky-high burden.

More here.

Rajan Menon in the Boston Review:

After a prolonged buildup of forces, the total reaching 120,000 soldiers and National Guard troops, Russian President Vladimir Putin decided on February 24 to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The decision has revived a sharp-elbowed debate in the United States. One side consists mainly, though not exclusively, of those belonging to the realist school of thought. This side insists that Putin’s move can only be understood by taking account of the friction that NATO’s eastward expansion created between Russia and the United States. The other side, primarily comprised of neoconservatives and liberal internationalists, retorts that Putin’s protests against NATO’s enlargement are bogus. They contend that Putin’s animosity toward democracy—particularly the fear that its success in Ukraine would rub off on Russia and bring down the state that he has built since 2000—was the sole reason for the war.

Both sides have succumbed to the single factor fallacy. Given the complexities of history and politics, why should we assume that Putin has only one aim, only one apprehension? In consequence their exchanges have been inconclusive, producing more heat than light.

More here.

Amit Majmudar at The Marginalia Review:

In his litany of beautiful things, Marcus Aurelius mentions a sword in the same breath as a blossom.

“Among the Quadi, on the river Gran” is the only reference to the barbarian tribes that Marcus Aurelius fought. Nowhere do we find assertions that the barbarians are despicable and deserve to have their way of life destroyed. There are no rants against the Quadi, no lurid accounts of Quadi evil that justify their subjugation. Marcus fought the Quadi without demonizing them.

The Mahabharata war centered on two rival sets of cousins, the five Pandavas and the hundred Kauravas. Arjuna is a Pandava, and Krishna is his mentor. After vowing not to take up arms in the war, Krishna serves as Arjuna’s charioteer. In the Gita, Krishna never launches into a tirade against the Kauravas. He never says a word against them. “Infidels,” “pagans,” “heathen,” “savages”: The Gita is missing these words. It is a rare scripture without an outgroup. Arjuna fought the Kauravas without demonizing them.

more here.

Ruth Franklin at The New Yorker:

On December 10, 2019, the Austrian writer Peter Handke received the Nobel Prize in Literature. If he felt pride or triumph, he didn’t show it. His bow tie askance above an ill-fitting white dress shirt, his eyes unsmiling behind his trademark round glasses, Handke looked resigned and stoical, as if he were submitting to a bothersome medical procedure. As he accepted his award, some of the onlookers—not all of whom joined in the applause—appeared equally grim.

Handke embarked on his career, in the nineteen-sixties, as a provocateur, with absurdist theatrical works that eschewed action, character, and dialogue for, in the words of one critic, “anonymous, threatening rants.” One of his early plays, titled “Offending the Audience,” ends with the actors hurling insults at the spectators.

more here.

Kasulke and Lockwood in The Morning News:

I’m uncomfortable saying a book that was a Good Morning America Book Club pick is underhyped. But Calvin Kasulke’s Several People Are Typing should get more recognition for how truly ambitious this book is. It’s set up as only being inside Slack and has to follow all the maddening logic of Slack, from side groups to bots, to the infuriating languages and social cultures that offices make for themselves.

This book has to do several things that readers expect novels to do (characters, ideas, plot, setting, worldbuilding) while balancing an understanding of Slack and potential readers’ understanding of that software designed to ostensibly be a place of business communications and workflow. The first half of this novel was maybe the most exciting book I read last year because it takes an absurd premise while navigating all those craft elements: As Gerald No-Last-Name-Given awoke from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into a sentient Slackbot. The rest of his colleagues think he is doing a bit until one of them finally agrees to check in on him. “I’m going to treat this like cat sitting, okay?” a character decides after seeing Gerald’s “Slack-Coma.” The rest of the office is obsessed with their work, their romances, and all the petty dehumanizing tasks of a modern American office place. Things continue to escalate on Gerald’s end, but for many of the workers involved in the novel, their plots move around the petty intrigues of the office: who gets a prime desk location, who is perceived as “productive,” and covering up a workplace romance.

More here.

Sophie Bushwick in Scientific American:

How is a lost tale of chivalry from medieval Europe like an unknown species of animal? According to a new study, the number of both items can be tallied using exactly the same mathematical model. The findings align with existing estimates of lost literature—and suggest that ecological models can be applied to a surprising variety of social science fields.

Experts know that much fiction from the medieval era (roughly from the beginning of the fifth century A.D. to the end of the 14th century), such as chivalric romances about King Arthur’s court, has disappeared over time. But quantifying that loss is difficult. “One thing we don’t know is … the portion of literature that didn’t survive,” says the new study’s co-author Mike Kestemont, an associate professor in the department of literature at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. Learning about what was lost can teach scholars more about the medieval period, and there are also present-day reasons to value this work, adds co-author Daniel Sawyer, a research fellow in medieval English literature at the University of Oxford. “Thinking about how cultural heritage survives seems like a useful thing to do, because right now—among many other things—that’s one of the important things threatened by things like climate change,” Sawyer says. “In the longer run, we as a species probably need to be thinking about ‘How do we preserve and record what we have?’ And knowing more about what kind of patterns of distribution can help survival of these things is not irrelevant to that.”

More here.

Zeynep Tufekci in the New York Times:

What if China had been open and honest in December 2019? What if the world had reacted as quickly and aggressively in January 2020 as Taiwan did? What if the United States had put appropriate protective measures in place in February 2020, as South Korea did?

To examine these questions is to uncover a brutal truth: Much suffering was avoidable, again and again, if different choices that were available and plausible had been made at crucial turning points. By looking at them, and understanding what went wrong, we can hope to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

More here.

Gary Markus in Nautilus:

Let me start by saying a few things that seem obvious,” Geoffrey Hinton, “Godfather” of deep learning, and one of the most celebrated scientists of our time, told a leading AI conference in Toronto in 2016. “If you work as a radiologist you’re like the coyote that’s already over the edge of the cliff but hasn’t looked down.” Deep learning is so well-suited to reading images from MRIs and CT scans, he reasoned, that people should “stop training radiologists now” and that it’s “just completely obvious within five years deep learning is going to do better.”

Fast forward to 2022, and not a single radiologist has been replaced. Rather, the consensus view nowadays is that machine learning for radiology is harder than it looks; at least for now, humans and machines complement each other’s strengths.

Few fields have been more filled with hype and bravado than artificial intelligence. It has flitted from fad to fad decade by decade, always promising the moon, and only occasionally delivering. One minute it was expert systems, next it was Bayesian networks, and then Support Vector Machines. In 2011, it was IBM’s Watson, once pitched as a revolution in medicine, more recently sold for parts.

More here.