Monday Memo

This week we're talking about...

• Beach vacations. To celebrate this very best part of the summer season we have unlocked a portfolio of features all about the beach. Seas and oceans; sands and lakes: dive into work by Guillermo Fadanelli, Major Jackson, Jennifer Chang, Martha Cooley, Patricia Engel, an unknown Buddhist traveler, and more. Take these pieces to the beach with you.
• The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, after a riveting discussion of Rainer Maria Rilke’s essay in Yiyun Li’s Master Class, "Writing About the Self," at A Public Space Academy: “For the sake of a few lines, one must see many cities, men, and things. One must know the animals, one must feel how the birds fly and know the gesture with which the small flowers open in the morning.” The fall schedule of classes is coming soon, and we hope you will join us in September for a new season of reading, writing, and conversation.
• APS contributor Ian Chillag's new podcast “Everything is Alive": “It's me, interviewing inanimate objects. In the coming weeks, I'll talk to a can of generic cola, a lamppost, a bar of soap, a mousetrap, and a subway seat who really, really loves his job.” Listen and subscribe.
• "The Female Gaze" at Lincoln Center, a two-week film festival featuring 36 films shot by 23 women, including Diane Baratier, Caroline Champetier, Agnès Godard, Babette Mangolte, and Rachel Morrison—who made history this year as the first woman nominated for the Best Cinematography Oscar for Mudbound.
• Managing Editor Megan Cummins’s trip to France this week, and the literary sites on her agenda: Les Deux Magots and Cafe de Flore in Paris (hangouts of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir); the Paimpont Forest in Brittany (the site of the legendary enchanted forest Brocéliande, of Arthurian legend); and the bookish town of Bécherel, known for its fifteen bookshops and annual Fête du Livre.