Like Lincoln Michel, I have a soft spot in my heart for little literary magazines, and worry about their future. (For what it’s worth, I think the biggest problems afflicting little magazines stem from their having been co-opted into providing one particular service: publication credits for creative writing teachers.) I sometimes imagine an alternative career for myself in which I wrote only, or almost only, for such journals. I’m pleased to say that I have an essay called “Looking Westward” appearing in a forthcoming issue of Raritan.

Cormac McCarthy gives an interview to some high school students.

I love — love — uniform editions of authors’ books.

Ted Gioia’s case for super-vinyl … I dunno. I’d prefer to have an improvement in viny records that does not require me to buy expensive new equipment. Might that be possible?

Rowan Williams: “One thing that might be said in response to Patriarch Kirill is that neighbours have to be loved, not terrorised into resentful silence – a matter on which the God first acknowledged in Kyiv in 988 had a good deal to say.”

In a recent post I wrote about my suspicion of the metaphors people use to describe the sound of vinyl records; turns out that there’s a (sadly long-silent) Tumblr devoted to the absolute balderdash audiophile magazines spout.