I like this comment by Budd Parr

In Praise of Online Obscurity

"Why? Because socializing doesn’t scale. Once a group reaches a certain size, each participant starts to feel anonymous again, and the person they’re following — who once seemed proximal, like a friend — now seems larger than life and remote. “They feel they can’t possibly be the person who’s going to make the useful contribution,” Evans says. So the conversation stops. Evans isn’t alone. I’ve heard this story again and again from those who’ve risen into the lower ranks of microfame. At a few hundred or a few thousand followers, they’re having fun — but any bigger and it falls apart. Social media stops being social. It’s no longer a bantering process of thinking and living out loud. It becomes old-fashioned broadcasting.

The lesson? There’s value in obscurity."

More on Budd Parr here.

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Whatsoever a Man Soweth by Barry Graham

I heard Barry Graham read this at Freebird Books in Brooklyn. I think it's the best thing he's written.

An Interview with Mary Gaitskill

How did I not see this until now? A fantastic interview with Mary Gaitskill at Bomb. In it, she quotes Simone Weil:

"This world is the only reality available to us, and if we do not love it in all its terror, we are sure to end up loving the “imaginary,” our own dreams and self-deceits, the Utopias of the politicians, or the futile promises of future reward and consolation which the misled blasphemously call “religion.” The soul has a million dodges for protecting itself against the acceptance and love of the emptiness, that “maximum distance between God and God,” which is the universe; for the price of such acceptance and love is abysmal misery. And yet it is the only way."

Also, Matthew Sharpe and she discuss "In The Ravine" by Chekhov. You can read "In The Ravine" here.

Buy Adam Robinson's book of poetry, Adam Robison and Other Poems

Pre-order Adam Robinson's book of poetry, Adam Robison and Other Poems, from Narrow House Press, by clicking here. Even if he didn't like my story, I stilll like Adam.

Fantastic Piece on Raymond Carver at the Millions

This strikes me as a wonderful reading of Carver.

Sadiq by Brian Turner

Sadiq
It is a condition of wisdom in the archer to be patient
because when the arrow leaves the bow, it returns no more.

It should make you shake and sweat,
nightmare you, stand you in a desert
of irevocable desolation, the consequences
seared into the vein, no matter what adrenaline
feeds the muscle its courage, no matter
what god shines down on you, no matter
what crackling pain and anger
you carry in your fists, my friend,
it should break your heart to kill.