Reading the Internet: Shamans, Rules, and Madmen

Here is a fast round up of some of the more interesting articles and works online that have recently nourished my thinking. Better than cat videos.

From The Appendix (journal of narrative and experimental history: Supernatural Sound: Science and Shamanism in the Arctic by Tim Fulford. This is a stunning article on the late 19th century encounters between Arctic explorers and shamans whose unique vocalizations produced supernatural experiences that the ardent scientists could not explain.

From Open Culture: Cormac McCarthy's Three Punctuation Rules. What I love about master fiction writers is their ability to know why certain grammar rules exist and then pretty much dismiss them in order to create a readable fiction that is somehow more intense, more intimate. "“I believe in periods, in capitals, in the occasional comma, and that’s it.” Forget quotation marks -- one should be able to write so as to make it clear who is talking.

From The New Yorker, Letter From Lagos, Madmen and Specialists by Teju Cole. This is a terrific review of Nigerian author Wole Soyinka's drama (Madmen and Specialists and Death won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986 and Death and the King's Horseman is still taught in university classes on African literature) -- as well as his complicated and fascinating life. At 80, Soyinka is still writing and fearlessly ruffling the political feathers of African politicians.

Art: From The Appendix: Benjamin Breen, 2013, based on an early 20th century photograph of an Inuit shaman.