An electric charge in words

The poet W. S. Merwin once said that you know you are writing a poem when a “sequence of words starts giving off what you might describe as a kind of electric charge.” I’ve been thinking about how to place the sort of liveness Merwin describes—the sense of your body as a living circuit that the poem moves through—in a world filling up with noise, marred by misdirection and distraction. When, how, and why do we make room for the miraculous? From moment to moment. In any way we can. Because it is part of the practice of being human. -Joshua Bennett is the Distinguished Chair of the Humanities and a literature professor at MIT writing in The Atlantic

Literature as antidote

Poetry was always more than poetry in Russia. Former Soviet prisoners are said to have attested that Russian classics saved their lives in the labor camps when they retold the novels of Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevsky to other inmates. Russian literature could not prevent the Gulags, but it did help prisoners survive them.

Slaves give birth to a dictatorship and a dictatorship gives birth to slaves. There is only one way out of this vicious circle, and that is through culture. Literature is an antidote to the poison of the Russian imperialist way of thinking. The road to the Bucha massacre leads not through Russian literature, but through its suppression.

Mikhail Shishkin writing in The Atlantic

Two Ways to Understand the World

The psychologist Jerome Bruner has argued that human beings understand the world in two very different ways. The first he calls the “paradigmatic mode” of thought. In the paradigmatic mode, we seek to comprehend our experience in terms of tightly reasoned analyses, logical proof, and empirical observation. In the second, “narrative mode” of thought, we are concerned with human wants, needs and goals. This is the mode of stories, wherein we deal with “the vicissitudes of human intention” organized in time. 

Masters of the Heritage Matic mode try to “say no more than they mean.” Examples are scientists or logicians seeking to determine cause-and-effect relationships in order to explain events and help predict and control reality. Their explanations are constructed in such a way as to block the triggering of presuppositions.

By contrast, good poets and novelists are masters of the narrative mode. Their stories are especially effective when, in Bruner’s words, they “mean more than they can say.” A good story triggers presuppositions. Good stories give birth to many different meanings, generating “children” of meaning in their own image.

Dan McAdams, The Stories We Live By

He Dropped Out to Become a Poet. Now He’s Won the top award for Mathematics

June Huh has been awarded the Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics, for his ability to wander through mathematical landscapes. One might say the same of his path into mathematics itself: that it was characterized by much wandering and a series of small miracles. When he was younger, Huh had no desire to be a mathematician. He was indifferent to the subject, and he dropped out of high school to become a poet. That poetic detour has since proved crucial to his mathematical breakthroughs. His artistry, according to his colleagues, is evident in the way he uncovers those just-right objects at the center of his work, and in the way he seeks a deeper significance in everything he does. “Mathematicians are a lot like artists in that really we’re looking for beauty,” said Federico Ardila-Mantilla, a mathematician at San Francisco State University and one of Huh’s collaborators. “But I think in his case, it’s really pronounced. And I just really like his taste. He makes beautiful things.”       

Jordana Cepelewicz writing in Quanta Magazine

Articles of Interest about Literature, Journalism, Writing & Languages – Jan 29

***WRITING & READING

The Enemies of Writing: A writer who’s afraid to tell people what they don’t want to hear has chosen the wrong trade  https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/packer-hitchens/605365/

 JRR Tolkien's son Christopher dies aged 95 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/16/jrr-tolkiens-son-christopher-dies-aged-95

 Exploring various scholars' rationales for self-plagiarism https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2020/01/10/essay-rationales-self-plagiarism

***GRAMMAR 

Who do they think they are? The battle over the singular use of “they” has been waged for centuries https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2020/01/18/who-do-they-think-they-are   

English's pronoun problem is centuries old https://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/english-s-pronoun-problem-is-centuries-old-120012301829_1.html

***JOURNALISM

7 things to consider before adopting AI in your news organisation: A training module for newsrooms https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2019/12/12/7-things-to-consider/

Journalism still has power: But not the way you’d hope  https://www.cjr.org/cjr_outbox/hegseth-trump-gallagher.php

The latest newspaper chain to face Alden Global Capital cost-cutting  https://www.axios.com/media-local-newspapers-private-equity-0add6bce-f44a-4938-82bb-6d4bb01068c8.html

Jim Lehrer's 16 Rules for Practicing Journalism with Integrity www.openculture.com/2020/01/jim-lehrers-16-rules-for-being-a-journalist-with-integrity.html

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Flipboard expands into local news https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/28/flipboard-expands-into-local-news/

Facebook awards $700,000 in local news grants  https://www.axios.com/facebook-local-news-grants-advertising-f9f7048b-2bd2-4eb6-9bfc-6fe72fb5c359.html

The New York Times used to be afraid of BuzzFeed. Now it’s hired its biggest star. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/1/28/21112608/ben-smith-new-york-times-buzzfeed-media-revenue-jonah-peretti

***FAKES & FRAUDS

Big Tech platforms struggle to police deepfakes ahead of the 2020 elections    https://www.axios.com/deepfakes-big-tech-policy-facebook-reddit-tiktok-ca7a99b8-e571-4b0b-933a-27e4b2c0b0f7.html   

2020 rules of the road for the Age of Misinformation https://www.axios.com/2020-rules-of-the-road-for-the-age-of-misinformation-87bc3f7e-b064-4b47-bc71-7639b9a82b8a.html

How Swedes Were Fooled By One Of The Biggest Scientific Bluffs Of Our Time https://medium.com/@Soccermatics/how-swedes-were-fooled-by-one-of-the-biggest-scientific-bluffs-of-our-time-de47c82601ad

A new text message scam is disguising itself as a FedEx notification https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/23/business/fedex-text-scam-trnd/ 

How To Spot 2020 Election Disinformation https://www.npr.org/2020/01/23/798809217/how-to-spot-2020-election-disinformation

Clearview AI Says Its Facial Recognition Software Identified A Terrorism Suspect: The Cops Say That's Not True https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/clearview-ai-nypd-facial-recognition

Half of Americans don’t know 6m Jews were killed in Holocaust, survey says    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/22/holocaust-survey-americans-pew-research-center

American Distrust Of The Voting Process Is Widespread, Poll Finds https://www.npr.org/2020/01/21/798088827/american-distrust-of-the-voting-process-is-widespread-npr-poll-finds

Is this video “missing context,” “transformed,” or “edited”? This effort wants to standardize how we categorize visual misinformation https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/01/is-this-video-missing-context-transformed-or-edited-this-effort-wants-to-standardize-how-we-categorize-visual-misinformation/

Misinformation about coronavirus tests Facebook, Google and China  https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-misinformation-facebook-twitter-google-china-246a0325-b4ea-4465-92ae-5f364a7e965c.html

The New York Times tested blockchain to help you identify faked photos on your timeline https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/01/heres-how-the-new-york-times-tested-blockchain-to-help-you-identify-faked-photos-on-your-timeline/

***SOCIAL MEDIA 

Twitter’s Jack Dorsey on edit button: ‘We’ll probably never do it’ https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/15/21066815/twitter-edit-button-jack-dorsey-says-no

Twitter apologises for letting ads target neo-Nazis and bigots https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51112238

Targeting TikTok’s privacy alone misses a larger issue: Chinese state control https://qz.com/1788836/targeting-tiktoks-privacy-alone-misses-a-much-larger-point/

***LANGUAGE 

 How we use language, with a look under the hood https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/columnists/mcintyre/bs-ed-mcintyre-20200111-tmf465vuubdebmtpu3p6ngsz2q-story.html

Things You Didn't Know Had Names  https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/63034/48-things-you-didnt-know-had-names 

Using a child’s identified pronouns might feel complicated, but it’s crucial. Here’s why (opinion) https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/01/16/using-childs-identified-pronouns-might-feel-complicated-its-crucial-heres-why/ 

The alphabets at risk of extinction https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200121-the-alphabets-at-risk-of-extinction

Author Interview: Dennis Baron On 'What's Your Pronoun?' https://www.npr.org/2020/01/26/799629318/author-interview-dennis-baron-on-what-s-your-pronoun

'Baby Shark,' Now In 19 Languages And Counting — Including A Navajo Tongue https://www.npr.org/2020/01/28/800557518/baby-shark-now-in-19-languages-and-counting-including-a-navajo-tongue

Discover the Disappearing Turkish Language That is Whistled, Not Spoken www.openculture.com/2020/01/discover-the-turkish-language-that-is-whistled-not-spoken.html

***LITERATURE

The Obscure Editions of Jane Austen Novels That Made Her Internationally Known  https://lithub.com/the-obscure-editions-of-jane-austen-novels-that-made-her-internationally-known/

UCLA receives $25 million from Uniqlo founder for Japanese literature and culture studies http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/25-million-uniqlo-founder-japanese-literature-and-culture

Edgar Allan Poe's Baltimore home was named a literary landmark https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/edgar-allan-poe-baltimore-literary-landmark-trnd/index.html

Virginia Woolf Books To Read If You Want To Explore 20th Century Literature https://www.republicworld.com/lifestyle/books/virginia-woolf-books-to-read-to-explore-20th-century-literature.html

Is Jane Austen the Antidote to Social Media Overload? https://daily.jstor.org/is-jane-austen-the-antidote-to-social-media-overload/

Jeanine Cummins' migrant book 'American Dirt' is problematic; author’s note makes it worse https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/books/2020/01/21/american-dirt-jeanine-cummins-book-review-mexican-migrant/4497859002/

***POETRY

What happens when machines learn to write poetry: should artificial intelligence alter our appreciation of art? http://bit.ly/30CkvI3

Have You Abandoned Your New Year's Resolutions? Tell Us In A Poem https://www.npr.org/2020/01/16/795953834/have-you-abandoned-your-new-years-resolutions-tell-us-in-a-poem

'Ghost poetry': fight over Samuel Beckett's Nobel win revealed in archives https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/17/ghost-poetry-fight-over-samuel-beckett-nobel-win-revealed-in-archives

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA  

Augmented reality contacts are real, and could be here sooner than you think https://mashable.com/article/augmented-reality-contact-lenses-mojo-vision/

The Culling Has Begun’: Inside the iHeartMedia Layoffs  https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/iheartmedia-mass-layoffs-937513

Could iHeart layoffs be the beginning of local radio’s endgame? https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2020/01/could-iheart-layoffs-be-the-beginning-of-local-radios-endgame.htm

2020 won't be the year digital election ads surpass TV  https://www.axios.com/2020-digital-election-ads-tv-75cd82b1-b9a1-4637-b885-8aa654e63291.html

***PRIVACY & SECURITY

Clearview app lets strangers find your name, info with snap of a photo, report says  https://www.cnet.com/news/clearview-app-lets-strangers-find-your-name-info-with-snap-of-a-photo-report-says

Facial Recognition could replace the fingerprint https://story.californiasunday.com/facial-recognition

The Secret History of Facial Recognition https://www.wired.com/story/secret-history-facial-recognition/

Most Americans support right to have some personal info removed from online searches  https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/27/most-americans-support-right-to-have-some-personal-info-removed-from-online-searches/

Articles of Interest about Literature, Journalism, Writing & Languages – Nov 29

***WRITING & READING 

The Weirdest Book Titles On Amazon https://www.sadanduseless.com/weird-amazon-books-list/

How do you cope with knowing that the project you poured years of your life into is not quite setting the world on fire? https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/25/writing-is-tough-my-book-went-so-unnoticed-i-won-an-award-for-it

The Last Decade Has Been Tumultuous For The Publishing Industry https://www.npr.org/2019/11/26/782867252/the-last-decade-has-been-tumultuous-for-the-publishing-industry

Prisons Around the U.S. Are Banning and Restricting Access to Books www.openculture.com/2019/11/prisons-around-the-u-s-are-banning-and-restricting-access-to-books.html

Messy handwriting reveals mystery translator: Queen Elizabeth I https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/29/handwriting-identifies-elizabeth-i-tacitus-translation

***JOURNALISM

New York Times dropping most social media trackers https://www.axios.com/new-york-times-social-media-trackers-47f547d5-a241-424a-a398-12344c78ac32.html  

Reporting That Hits People Where They Live — by Reporters Who Live There Too https://cronkitenewslab.com/broadcast/2019/11/14/new-generation-storytellers-changing-rules-abc

How one woman captured 30 years’ worth of broadcast news https://lwlies.com/articles/recorder-the-marion-stokes-project-director-interview/?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email

5 Photojournalists Sue Homeland Security for First Amendment Violations https://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2019/11/5-photojournalists-sue-homeland-security-for-first-amendment-violations.html

Americans favor mobile devices over desktops and laptops for getting news https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/11/19/americans-favor-mobile-devices-over-desktops-and-laptops-for-getting-news/ 

An Exhaustive Ranking of Movie Journalists  https://www.theringer.com/movies/2019/11/25/20974644/movie-journalists-ranked  

***JOURNALISM & AI

The relationship of journalism to AI http://bit.ly/35z5F6s    

Relevance of AI in Accelerating Journalism and Newsroom Workflow https://www.analyticsinsight.net/relevance-ai-accelerating-journalism-newsroom-workflow/

Actually, it’s about Ethics, AI, and Journalism: Reporting on and with Computation and Data https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/ai-ethics-journalism-and-computation-ibm-new-york-times.php

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

9 charts about America’s newsrooms https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/11/26/9-charts-about-americas-newsrooms/

Putting a price tag on local news https://knightfoundation.org/reports/putting-a-price-tag-on-local-news/

AP to add 14 statehouse reporters in collaboration with Report for America https://www.ap.org/press-releases/2019/ap-to-add-14-statehouse-reporters-in-collaboration-with-report-for-america

Portland Has Been Overcharging People for Public Records, Court Finds https://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2019/11/19/27502241/portland-has-been-overcharging-people-for-public-records-court-finds

***STUDENT MEDIA

Student reporters at BYU-Idaho allegedly pressured not to publish negative stories https://www.eastidahonews.com/2019/11/student-reporters-at-byu-idaho-allegedly-pressured-not-to-publish-negative-stories/

High school journalists who fought censorship win award https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2019/11/25/burlington-high-schoolers-censorship-granted-journalism-award/4295236002  

Lawsuit pits father against daughter after article alleging sex abuse appears in UNC student newspaper  https://www.greensboro.com/news/local_news/no-turning-back-in-lawsuit-pitting-father-against-daughter-after/article_f093b659-134f-5fd8-a7ad-6b98c9f9be2f.html

***FAKE NEWS

The neuroscience of how fake news grabs our attention, produces false memories, and appeals to our emotions https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/11/galaxy-brain-the-neuroscience-of-how-fake-news-grabs-our-attention-produces-false-memories-and-appeals-to-our-emotions/

Fake News Is Costing the World $78 Billion a Year https://cheddar.com/media/exclusive-fake-news-is-costing-the-world-billion-a-year

The Incredibly True Story of Fake Headlines https://daily.jstor.org/the-incredibly-true-story-of-fake-headlines/

Before Trump: the real history of fake news https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/22/factitious-taradiddle-dictionary-real-history-fake-news

***SOCIAL MEDIA 

Here’s What Cancel Culture Looked Like in 1283 (video) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/opinion/cancel-culture-victims.html 

Facebook still isn’t clear about why it won’t take down false political ads https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/11/18/20970942/facebook-political-ads-policy-carolyn-everson-code-media   

‘This app is free and therapy is not’: Gen Z will keep using TikTok even if they don’t trust it https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/11/15/this-app-is-free-therapy-is-not-gen-z-will-keep-using-tiktok-even-if-they-dont-trust-it/

TikTok Denies Censoring A Teen Who Criticized China's Concentration Camps — They Said They Banned Her After A Joke About Osama Bin Laden Thirst https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/teen-tik-tok-china-osama-bin-laden

Twitter Said It Will Not Delete The Accounts Of Dead People https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/twitter-wont-delete-the-accounts-of-dead-people-for-now

***LANGUAGE

The Loudness Of Vowels Helps The Brain Break Down Speech Into Syl-La-Bles https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/11/20/780988618/the-loudness-of-vowels-helps-the-brain-break-down-speech-into-syl-la-bles

‘Climate Emergency’ Is the Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2019-11-20/climate-emergency-is-the-oxford-dictionaries-word-of-the-year 

What happens when college students discuss lab work in Spanish, philosophy in Chinese or opera in Italian?   https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/education/what-happens-when-college-students-discuss-lab-work-in-spanish-philosophy-in-chinese-or-opera-in-italian/2019/11/18/0eef3f7a-0985-11ea-bd9d-c628fd48b3a0_story.html

***LITERATURE 

The 50 best nonfiction books of past 25 years  https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/11/50-best-nonfiction-books.html

Author hits back after library removes LGBT picture book from shelves  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/20/author-west-virginia-library-removes-lgbt-book-shelves-daniel-haack-prince-and-knight   

George Eliot translation of Spinoza sheds new light on her fiction  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/22/george-eliot-translation-of-spinoza-sheds-new-light-on-her-fiction

***POETRY

‘My cell is smaller than my size’ – how writing poetry saved a political prisoner (video) https://aeon.co/videos/my-cell-is-smaller-than-my-size-how-writing-poetry-saved-a-political-prisoner

Finding poetry in the letters of Vincent van Gogh https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/finding-poetry-in-the-letters-of-vincent-van-gogh-1.4090884   

Typewriter poet pounds out poems in 20 minutes https://www.ktre.com/2019/11/22/webxtra-typewriter-poet-pounds-out-poems-minutes/      

In the Woods of Greenwich, a Studio for Writing Poetry https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/style/in-the-woods-of-greenwich-a-studio-for-writing-poetry.html   

Don’t Let Your Children Become Insufferable Poets https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/opinion/future-humanities-science-education.html   

Gay Poet's Book Canceled Over Sexy Instagram Pictures https://www.out.com/books/2019/11/15/gay-poets-book-cancelled-over-sexy-instagram-pictures

Who’s More Qualified to Write About Death Than a Funeral Director Poet? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/books/review/the-depositions-thomas-lynch.html

***PRIVACY & SECURITY 

Key takeaways on Americans’ views about privacy, surveillance and data-sharing https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/11/15/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-about-privacy-surveillance-and-data-sharing/

Suspect can’t be compelled to reveal “64-character” password, court rules https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/11/police-cant-force-child-porn-suspect-to-reveal-his-password-court-rules/

***PRODUCING MEDIA

How to Make Your Podcast Sound Like NPR  https://lifehacker.com/how-to-make-your-podcast-sound-like-npr-1840048544