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Selections from the March issue Computing The Cost: Nicholas Carr On How The Internet Is Rewiring Our Brains Interview by Arnie Cooper “As we increasingly connect with the world through computer screens, we’re removing ourselves from direct sensory contact with nature. In other words, we’re learning to substitute symbols of reality for reality itself.” Read the whole interview  All Of Me Confessions from the grand dame of binge Essay by Patricia Brieschke (Un)Happy Meals Layoffs and day-old McMuffins Essay by Doug Crandell The Dinner Table In a prison cell, at Grandmother’s house, atop a swaying boxcar Personal stories by our readers Plus: Poetry by Lou Lipsitz and Sunbeams Favorite from the archives From the August 2006 issue: Under The Apple Tree Fiction by Laura Pritchett “When Joe left me sitting under the apple tree and started to walk across the meadow toward my trailer, he looked back and waved, and then walked on, and then he did a complete circle with his arms out, like he was embracing the world. That made me laugh, because he was so happy and willing to show it.” Read the whole story Sun reader Brenda Nelson writes: “I love this story because it’s sensual, erotic, and filled with unbearable longing. Every so often I reread it just for the high.” What’s your favorite piece from The Sun and why? Tell us, and we may include your suggestion on our website and in our newsletter. Announcing a new book from The Sun In fifty personal essays, short stories, and poems that originally appeared in the The Sun, some of the magazine’s most talented writers explore heartbreak and ecstasy, anger and forgiveness, fleeting crushes and lasting relationships. What bloggers are saying A book-obsessed psychotherapist in California puts herself on an Internet diet after reading Arnie Cooper’s interview with Nicholas Carr [“Computing the Cost,” March 2009]. An environmentalist and journalism student in Kansas discusses food sustainability and David Kupfer’s interview with Judy Wicks [“Table for Six Billion, Please,” August 2008] with her classmates. The Guardian’s Stuart Evers writes that he’s fallen in love with Poe Ballantine’s writing, admits his preference for American English, and asks why the British are so fascinated with U.S. literature. Verbal fisticuffs promptly break out in the comments section. A writer and grandmother in Ohio reads The Sun on a quiet, snowy morning and contemplates submitting her work. A food enthusiast in Texas rejoices at receiving her copy of the March issue in the mail. Weekends with Sun authors Join Sun authors, readers, and staff — including editor and publisher Sy Safransky — for a lively weekend of conversation, reflection, and inspiration. The Sun will host two gatherings this year: one on May 15–17 at the Rowe Conference Center in Rowe, Massachusetts, and the other on October 30–November 1 at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Online registration is now available; click here for details. Spaces fill quickly, so we recommend registering soon. Most-read on our website
Join "Body and Mind Attraction" (BMA) blog on FacebookMeet BMA readers. Discuss the latest issue. Share your stories and photos. Join the online gathering of BMA and Don White enthusiasts by becoming a fan of Don White on Facebook. Free trial offer Not yet a subscriber? We offer a free trial issue of The Sun with no obligation. Try us before you buy — and save 50% off the newsstand price if you decide to continue your subscription. Click here to take advantage of this special offer. What do you think?Thoughts about the March issue? Comments about the newsletter? Suggestions to make? Please write us. We enjoy hearing from readers. Like what you’ve read? Pass this newsletter on to a friend. Did someone forward this e-mail to you? You can sign up for your own e-newsletter subscription here, absolutely free.  You’re receiving this e-mail because you signed up for The Sun’s e-newsletter at www.thesunmagazine.org. We don’t share your e-mail address with anyone. Please see our website to read our full privacy policy. | |||||
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| Monday, February 23, 2009  YOU TELL US We received 152 nominations, added a few of our own, and then selected 22 American towns that stand out from the crowd. If you've been to Owego, N.Y.; Grinnell, Iowa; or Guerneville, Calif.—to name just a few—then cast your ballot and spread the word. read more  PACK YOUR KNIVES AND GO Craving more Top Chef? We've got the dish on the show's most memorable New York moments—along with smart tips for experiencing some of the city's best culinary haunts. Get details and check out our slide show. read more  FROM OUR BLOG: THIS JUST IN When it comes time to buy food presents for the people back home, the City of Light can turn any suitcase heavy. But years of transatlantic gifting have taught expat Meg Zimbeck how to scale down both the size and the cost of these purchases. Here are ideas for gifts that won't break your back or your budget. read postMore Affordable Paris Coverage: CALLING ALL READERS When you're traveling with kids, what are your secrets to success? Share your tried-and-true tips with us! Are there items you always make sure to pack? Do you have any surefire ways to keep everyone entertained? Anything to keep in mind when booking flights, hotels, cruises, or cars? Strategies for staying healthy? We'd love to hear what you do to make your family trips as fun and as easygoing as possible. E-mail us by March 2, and your advice might be included in The Smart Traveler's Passport: Family Edition, our upcoming guide to family travel. e-mail us now  Nonstop Caribbean: Fly straight to St. Lucia, Aruba, Jamaica, U.S. Virgin Islands, Antigua, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, St. Martin, St. Kitts, more  REAL DEALS Spend six nights in one of the elegant villas at Adare Manor Resort, located near Limerick and popular day-trip destinations like the Cliffs of Moher, Killarney, and Galway. This package also includes a rental car and international airfare, from $599. why it's a deal  These hotel deals for Santa Fe, Phoenix, and Tempe start at $106 a night. The perks include massages, gift certificates, and rooftop pools—perfect for watching the sun set. why they're a deal
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Visualize a Body
By Don White
Most men would gladly take you up on that offer. But let's step back into another dimension. Imagine there was a pre-earth prep school called Spirit World.
It isn’t hard to believe SW 101 was all about visualizing and understanding the body. None in our class had a physical body, but many of us greatly anticipated wearing one of those strange flesh and bone shrouds on earth.
What kind of ethereal experience would life be like without a body? That was the whole point, wasn’t it?
In the spirit world we went to class on bodies, scriptures, Gods, and eternal life. It was so theoretical, how do you remember any of it? It was hard to relate to study about this palpable, flexible protoplasm stuff.
It excited us while boring us because we were diaphanous and to have a body was a new dimension we had not yet considered. No pardons needed—we were spirits who could walk right through each other. From that orientation nothing they said about earth life made sense.
That was because we were children, wide-eyed kids two days before Christmas or on the family’s first Disney trip. Similarly, we're still children if we haven't accepted our Savior, his gospel, and spiritual knowledge.
I compare trying to imagine sex. For most men, that is not hard because now they have something to which they can relate. But not in the spirit world. Up there it was not erotic or exciting, but a technical process like when the spirit world teacher taught us how we would walk or eat.
They offered flash images of how we’d use our bodies. One use was to procreate, to have sex with another body and have kids. That’s when they completely lost me. We had only a vague notion of what it would be like but were told it would be at once threatening and attractive. There are still some men who are threatened by the sight of a female body and some wicked people taunt, branding them with the name homosexual.
All of this was dry and confusing—how could anyone relate? Too many expectations were erroneous and bad; weren’t we antsy enough already? Here's how the conversation went among the teachers: “Tell them little—avoid setting them afire into spiritual convulsion. Excessive candy and rum sour the tum-tum.."
Then that momentous event occurred--conception. We came to earth and waited, and suddenly the pearl burst upon us—sexual urge and paroxysm so impelling—not at all like what our spirits were taught.
A moment before we had only a vague notion of what it would be like. Just like now—worlds beyond and eternal joy, but we have no idea…And do think there were no disbelievers in the spirit world? No one had developed far enough to have faith in anything. Most of us were immature but we were all willing to listen and learn. Likewise, there are disbelievers in life after death--after this life--but don't find fault.
If you start by believing in a loving God, you must end by believing all of this here on earth is, likewise, preparation for something far grander, far more expansive and fulfilling than earth life. Give it a try, it doesn't cost anything to believe. Believe in something you can count on, trust, and grasp. Believe in a loving God and in his son Jesus Christ and in eternal life...it's out there waiting for us to accept, but we need to make the first move toward our savior and then his arm reaches out to us and saves us from the sins of the world.
When it works best, “Changeling” is a feverish and bluntly effective parable of wronged innocence.
To say that Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” is one of the best films of the year is such a pathetic response to its soaring ambition that I might as well pack it in right now.
In the drama “I’ve Loved You So Long,” Kristin Scott Thomas’s furious honesty rules out easy, unearned redemption.
“Pride and Glory,” directed by Gavin O’Connor, plods across familiar ground. It’s yet another movie about the fraternal disorder of the police.
How lovely the American high school experience might be if it offered even a smidgen of the euphoria in “High School Musical 3: Senior Year.”
You learn little by way of hard facts about the adored French soccer star and famous head-butter Zinédine Zidane in the formalist exercise that bears his name.
“Let the Right One In” takes the morbid unhappiness of its young characters seriously.
“Saving Marriage” is an in-the-trenches, defiantly partisan and exuberantly big-hearted movie.
“Fear(s) of the Dark” is an animated anthology that tells its stories with an inventiveness that’s seldom scary but never less than mesmerizing.
Gonzalo Arijón’s documentary “Stranded” offers an incontrovertible argument for the necessity of team spirit in the face of catastrophe.
There’s not a moment of warmth or ease in “Ben X,” Nic Balthazar’s punishingly cacophonous debut.
Mr. Moore’s standup comedy, records and movies — notably 1975’s “Dolemite” — related earthy tales that helped shape today’s hip-hop.
“I’ve Loved You So Long” was a surprise hit in France this year. Though it is the 46-year-old Mr. Claudel’s first film, he is already well known in France as a writer.
Charlie Kaufman traces an artist’s life and creative path. Good luck following along.
Go to Movies »
Halloween usually brings a crimson tide of horror movies on DVD, and this year is no exception.
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AP - The economy lurched deeper into the doldrums Wednesday and took the stock market down with it, sending the Dow Jones industrials to a staggering 733-point loss and erasing any hopes that the convulsions that have shaken Wall Street for a month were over.
Get hold of Don and Carolyn White's successful new book,a must read for our economic times, SELLING FAST: We Sold Our House in One Day And You Can Too.
The decision was in line with the Swedish Academy's recent picks of European authors. Last year's prize went to Doris Lessing of Britain.
The academy called Le Clezio an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization."
Le Clezio made his breakthrough as a novelist with "Desert," in 1980, a work the academy said "contains magnificent images of a lost culture in the North African desert contrasted with a depiction of Europe seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants."
That novel, which also won Le Clezio a prize from the French Academy, is considered a masterpiece. It describes the ordeal of Lalla, a woman from the Tuareg nomadic tribe of the Sahara Desert, as she adapts to civilization imposed by colonial France at the beginning of the 20th century.
The Swedish Academy said Le Clezio from early on "stood out as an ecologically engaged author, an orientation that is accentuated with the novels 'Terra Amata,' 'The Book of Flights,' 'War' and 'The Giants.'"
Le Clezio has spent much of his time living in New Mexico in recent years. He has long shied away from public life, spending much of his time traveling, often in the world's various deserts.
He has published several dozen books, including novels and essays. The most famous are tales of nomads, mediations on the desert and childhood memories. He has also explored the mythologies of native Americans, who have long fascinated him.
Academy Permanent Secretary Horace Engdahl called Le Clezio a writer of great diversity.
"He has gone through many different phases of his development as a writer and has come to include other civilizations, other modes of living than the Western, in his writing," Engdahl said.
Asked how he thought the prize would be received in the United States, given Engdahl's recent controversial comments about American literature, he said he had no idea.
"I'm not aware that there are today any anti-French sentiments in the U.S. And apart from that, Le Clezio, is a cosmopolitan. He lives part of the year in New Mexico," Engdahl said.
"He's not a particularly French writer if you look at him from a strictly cultural point of view. So I don't think this choice will give rise to any anti-French comments," he said. "I would be very sad if that was the case."
Since Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe won the award in 1994, the selections have had a distinctly European flavor. Since then 12 Europeans, including Le Clezio, have won the prize. The last U.S. writer to win the prize was Toni Morrison in 1993.
Appearing on France Inter radio Thursday to promote a new book shortly before the prize was announced, Le Clezio was asked if he thought he might win a possible Nobel.
"Sure, why not," he replied. "When you're a writer you always believe in literary prizes."
Le Clezio said a Nobel "was something that makes you rebound, that gives you the desire to keep writing ... We write to be read, we write to have responses, and that is a response."
In an interview with news magazine Label France in 2001, Le Clezio said literature was a "means of reminding people of this tragedy and bringing it back to center stage."
Le Clezio was quoted as saying that "when I write I am primarily trying to translate my relationship to the everyday, to events.
Le Clezio was born in Nice in 1940 and at eight the family moved to Nigeria, where his father had been a doctor during World War II. They returned to France in 1950.
His most recent works include 2007's "Ballaciner," a work the academy called a "deeply personal essay about the history of the art of film and the importance of film" in his life.
His books have also included several tales for children, including 1980's "Lullaby" and "Balaabilou" in 1985.
In addition to the 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) check, Le Clezio will also receive a gold medal and be invited to give a lecture at the academy's headquarters in Stockholm's Old Town.
The Nobel Prize in literature is handed out in Stockholm on Dec. 10 — the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896 — along with the awards in medicine, chemistry, physics and economics. The Nobel Peace Prize is presented in Oslo, Norway.
First Monday in October is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee.
The title refers to the day on which the United States Supreme Court traditionally convenes following its summer recess. Ruth Loomis, a staunch conservative, has become the first woman appointed to the august body, and she immediately finds opposition in the person of Daniel Snow, the resident liberal. Although they never concur on any of the issues before the Court, they learn to develop a respect and affection for one another with the passing of time.
After seventeen previews, the Broadway production, directed by Edwin Sherin, opened on October 3, 1978 at the Majestic Theatre. The following month it transferred to the ANTA Playhouse, where it closed on December 9, for a total of 79 performances. Jane Alexander and Henry Fonda headed the cast. Alexander was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
A 1981 film version (First Monday in October), adapted by Lawrence and Lee and directed by Ronald Neame, starred Jill Clayburgh and Walter Matthau, both of whom were nominated for Golden Globe awards for their performances.
Hollywood was delighted upon the real-life nomination in August of Sandra Day O'Connor -- who, like Loomis, was said to be conservative, a sports fan, and younger than others on the Court. O'Connor's nomination prompted Paramount to change the release date from October to August.[1]
It sounds glamorous, but it is not. If you went to school and came out with an English degree, naturally you want to write a bestselling novel. If you worked as a journalist,
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Slide Show: Shots Between Takes
