It’s not all OMG, WTF and LOL
THE online world is too much with us; late and soon, clicking and tweeting, we lay waste our powers. Little we see IRL* that is ours; we have given our attention away — pop goes the thought balloon!
On the other hand, fellow newspaperbuying pagans of the Silicon Age, there is some splendid stuff to read online, if only you know where to snuffle it out. Here’s my starter’s guide to the lists of the most intelligent writing on the web.
Arts & Letters Daily (http://aldaily.com)
If you haven’t stumbled upon this site yet you’re in for a treat. Read it for its cornucopia of recommended essays, op-eds and reviews, but also for its 20-word article summaries, which amount to a new poetics. Here’s a sparkly nugget on the survival of the fittest neologisms (“blogosphere”), versus those that died of coinage remorse (“splooch”): http:// bit.ly/Splooch.
Medium (https://medium.com)
Created by a Twitter co-founder — almost as an antidote to it — Medium has scads of fresh, original writing and a handy counter that tells you how long an article will take to read. See especially its “Life Hacks” section, including this piece on fighting information overload via a self-constructed “impending doom engine”: http://bit.ly/DoomEngine.
The Browser (http://thebrowser.com/)
, personified by the manatee in its masthead, sends the friendliest e-mails to your inbox. The spirit of this gentle sea cow will guide you to uncharted places, such as the Thought Catalogue, which recently published this excellent piece about an unwitting escape from a serial killer: http://bit.ly/ YikesRandyKraft.
Fellow pagans of the Silicon Age, there is some splendid stuff to read online
Standard Culture
(http://www.standardculture.com)
Hotels as curators of content — why not? The Standard, which maintains several addresses on both US coasts where weary travellers may rest their heads, also commissions high-calibre writing. Read it for a terrific interview with smuggler-writer Richard Stratton, who kept company with Norman Mailer and Hunter S Thompson:
http://bit.ly/SmugglersBlues.
Esquire UK Long Reads of the Week
(http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture)
It’s common cause that men’s magazines are cesspits of mincery masquerading as manuals of manliness. And yet there’s Esquire’s UK edition to contend with, which occasionally ascends from “Girls on Instagram We Love” to multicellular lucidity — most notably with its long reads roundup, which may be found in its “culture” section (stop sniggering) and which latterly included this David Sedaris piece: http:// bit.ly/TiffanyDies.
Books LIVE's Sunday Reads (http://bookslive.co.za & http://facebook.com/booksa)
Local lit site Books LIVE — the apple of my beady, bookish eye — rounds up six of the best literary articles to digest along with your Sunday coffee and croissants. We publish the main story on our front page, every Sunday morning, and five on Facebook, including this unexpected antiAlice Munro sermon: http:// bit.ly/SeesChocs.
Each of these sites is its own veritable upgathering of digital flowers. Go ahead — click on the links and browse at all hours.
* In Real Life
Link love:
“Write. Finish things. Keep writing.” “The world is not obliged to care.” See what else sci-fi writers inscribe on their hands with their pens: http://bit.ly/DigitAdvice