The hand drawn envelopes of Edward Gorey.

• Asking about the future of science fiction writing…in 1971.

• An excerpt from the book Birds of Fire: Jazz, Rock, Funk, and the Creation of Fusion (Duke University Press) by Kevin Fellezs

• Mike Doherty at Salon defends baseball novels even though they net the writers $665,000 advances.  (You could just hire a private security team with that sort of money.)

• Celebrating old(e) English embroidery at Yale.

• New video for the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy song “Quail and Dumplings” features a bearded guy on an island being taken care of by the natives.  Does that sell you?

• Some live Sigur Rós will do you good if you plan to hibernate this weekend.