Web artifact made of solid gold CELEBRITY LECTURES SERIES from Michigan State University. Ten years worth of lectures were posted in 1998. They are all still there-- awaiting your return.
Edward Albee ,Isabel Allende, Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood, Pat Conroy, Jacques d'Amboise, E.L. Doctorow, Richard Ford, Carlos Fuentes, David Halberstam,
Joseph Heller,
John Irving, Judith Jamison, William Kennedy, Norman Mailer, David McCullough, Terry McMillan, Arthur Miller, Joyce Carol Oates, Philip Roth, Jane Smiley, Susan Sontag, Amy Tan,
Paul Theroux, John Updike,
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Derek Walcott, Garry Wills, August Wilson and
Tom Wolfe.
I listened to the Vonnegut lecture. Imagine-- a whole hour and a half (Well, I skipped the first 9 minutes of introductions.) with my favorite author wheezing and sputtering. How refreshing to hear him declaim in his own voice and reveal the happiest day of his life and his own favorite from among his works -"The Sirens of Titan".
posted by notmtwain
on May 27, 2011 -
8 comments
In her essay,
The Naked and the Conflicted, Katie Roiphe compares the directly sexual writing of Roth, Mailer, and Updike with the more timid approach adopted by America's new batch of male novelists. "We denounce the Great Male Novelists of the last century for their sexism. But something has been lost now that innocence is more fashionable than virility, the cuddle preferable to sex." [SLNYT]
posted by billysumday
on Jan 2, 2010 -
123 comments
John Updike writes about bizarre dinosaurs for National Geographic. "How weird might a human body look to them? That thin and featherless skin, that dish-flat face, that flaccid erectitude, those feeble, clawless five digits at the end of each limb, that ghastly utter lack of a tail—ugh. Whatever did this creature do to earn its place in the sun, a well-armored, nicely specialized dino might ask. " Besides the Updike essay there's a
image gallery, an
interview with John Updike
[audio starts automatically], a dino
IQ test, an
audio critique of the way dinosaurs have been depicted in the latter half of the 20th Century
[audio starts automatically], a closer look at
the odder features of some of the stranger dinosaurs, an examination of the
nigersaurus (
images) as well as dinosaur
wallpapers and
jigsaw puzzles.
[via MeFi's Own ed]
posted by Kattullus
on Nov 30, 2007 -
26 comments
Och, It's Wee Jonnie Updike. A verging-on-the-
Brigadoonish rewrite of Scottish national bard Robert Burns (you'll be singing his
"Auld Lang Syne" in about 24 hours), by the scrofulous old Joyce of the 'burbs himself. The original verse is "To a Mouse", rewritten after the news that geneticists find a lot in common between the DNA of mice and men.
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
Braw science says that at the leastie
We share full ninety-nine per cent
O' genes, where'er the odd ane went.
'At the
leastie'!? Jings, crivens, help ma boab, I think he's jeopardised his joab.
posted by theplayethic
on Dec 30, 2002 -
4 comments
