From A Brochure for Comprehending the Cultures of the Coalition Forces, a twenty-eight-page pamphlet published by the Afghan Ministry of Defense and distributed to Afghan troops. Translated from the Dari…

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From an interview with children’s book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak, by British journalist Emma Brockes, published in the November/December 2012 issue of The Believer. Sendak, whose many works include…

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From Here and Now, a collection of letters exchanged by novelists J. M. Coetzee and Paul Auster between 2008 and 2011, out this month from Viking. 24 august 2009 Dear…

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From an October 9, 2012, email sent by Lucy Bird, then chief executive of Marketing Edinburgh, to city councillors Sue Brice and Alastair Maclean, during the development of an ad…

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By Peter Andreas, from his book out this month from Oxford University Press. Andreas is a professor of political science at Brown University. The agents moved in to seize the…

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From a November 19, 2012, blog post by John McAfee, the founder of the antivirus-software company McAfee, who in mid-November came under suspicion by Belizean police of murdering his neighbor…

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From the October 23, 2012, dissenting opinion of Judge Robert Smith in a case brought by the operators of Nite Moves, a strip club near Albany, against New York State’s…

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From a twenty-seven-page letter by Anders Behring Breivik sent last October to corrections officials in Norway. Breivik is currently serving a twenty-one-year sentence in a maximum-security prison near Oslo for…

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From a September 12, 2012, post by The Mittani, a member of the Goonswarm alliance in the role-playing game Eve Online, on a website that provides news about the fictional…

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on the kupuestra It is not supple. It communicates nothing. The kupuestra is mute; brittle; many-cornered, the body as polygon; the choreographic equivalent of Ak-Mak crackers but without the sesame…

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From emails received by Michael D’Antuono in response to his painting The Truth, which depicts President Barack Obama in a crucifixion-like pose and wearing a crown of thorns. D’Antuono originally…

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From an October 26 letter from Dina Kourda to Joe Dillman, the street-maintenance superintendent in Irvine, California. As a concerned citizen of Irvine, I am writing today on behalf of…

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From a complaint filed September 7, 2012, by Stephanie Kirschner and Brad J. Kane against the owners and operators of Eden Memorial Park, a cemetery in Mission Hills, California. In…

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From A History of Future Cities, by Daniel Brook, to be published next month by W. W. Norton. Brook’s article “New Hampshire Goddam” appeared in the November 2012 issue of…

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From Responding to Climate Change in New York State, a November 2011 report prepared for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Rising sea levels and extreme weather…

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From the instruction manual for Catan: Oil Springs, a scenario-expansion kit for the board game The Settlers of Catan. Developed by the Worldwatch Institute and the game’s manufacturers, the scenario…

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From comments on the Facebook page of the Jefferson County, Alabama, sheriff’s office, posted last January in response to a photo of Dustin McCombs, who was wanted on charges of…

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From a selection of openings to abandoned short stories by Zsuzsi Gartner included in Five Dials number 25. As part of an ongoing project, Gartner issues adoption certificates to readers who request…

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From an 1851 “list of imitation book-backs” sent by Charles Dickens to a London bookbinder, who fabricated mock books with the fake titles. The New York Public Library re-created part…

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