Episode 185—Mahjong on the Telephone

In light of the recent controversy around Helen DeWitt winning and then losing the lucrative Windham-Campbell Prize, we talk about the dying era of the true literary eccentric, the artistic costs of writers being online, and making room for genuine artistic and intellectual curiosity in an age when every idle moment is filled with an obligation to produce optimized digital marketing content. Which artists get to be offline weirdos, anymore? What happens when an “artist” is a marketing idea instead of an authentic pursuit?