Monday's Body of Work

The Dark Side Can't Touch Us

Monday is a healthy day for competition. Good thing, because we’re announcing a poetry contest. Check out what’s happening by visiting our Poetry Contest Page. Competition aside, the literary world continues to sparkle. And in our crown we hold the jewel of optimism. Yes, today we are confident with the world. We have made peace with our failures. We are eager for the promise of a new day. It wasn’t always like this. Optimism here is usually like a throw-away prize at the bottom of a box of Cracker Jacks, and we don’t eat Cracker Jacks. But today is different. Something has shifted and we feel light. Take for instance an article from the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s about a young woman’s quest for her first orgasm. Normally we would jeer. But not today. You go, girl! Carrying on, we have an account of the Blues, David Byrne’s take on everything under the sun, a debunking of Thoreau’s myth and a review of Pynchon’s new thriller. And that’s not all! Yes, as devout optimists we are sharing more. The Guardian has a gruesomely delicious preview of a story about butchery and the New York Review of Books tackles blogging’s influence on journalism. Ah, so good. Everything is lemon pie, fresh laundry and money in the bank. — Kevin Murphy

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