Housekeeping

I've been really bad lately at collecting links to interesting articles and sites and then letting them just sit waiting for me to get around to them. Some of these links I've had hanging around, some of them are recent. Enjoy!

• Want to get excited and depressed at the same time? Then visit a new blog, The Diaries of Franz Kafka. Paul Kerschen is translating Kafka's diaries day-by-day. You get the joy or entries like this:

  “If he ever asked me” the a released from the sentence flew off like a ball on the meadow.

  And the depression of ones like this:

  The auricle of my ear felt fresh, rough, cool, succulent to the touch, like a leaf. I write this most surely from despair over my body and over the future with this body If despair presents itself so surely, so tied to its object, so restrained, as if by a soldier who covers the retreat and lets himself be blown up for it, then it is not true despair. True despair always immediately overtakes its target, (at this comma it becomes clear that only the first sentence was true)

  This will proove to be an interesting site. (link via Maude Newton)
• You can see some illustartions from various edition of War of the Worlds. I think this one by Edward Gorey creeps me out the most because it looks roach-like with all those legs. Makes my skin crawl.
• Did you know there was a Margaret Mitchell House and Museum dedicated to the writer and things Gone With the Wind-ish? I'm probably stepping on some toes here, but this book isn't exactly what I would call great literature. I mean, it's a good story, a fun read and a fun movie, but not a very accurate portrayal of the Civil War. To give the place some credit, it does house the Center for Southern Literature.
• If you like mazes and puzzles, this is for you. I'm good at finding my way out, but terrible at making my way in.