Currently, my favorite "fun" reading material consist of The Sun Magazine. My friend Greg introduced me to the The Sun a couple of years ago by gifting me a year-long subscription for my birthday. It was the best gift ever.
There are many things I like about this magazine. For starters, it has no corporate advertisements. Just great black and white photos. Although a literary magazine, it is also void of information for literary contests, residencies, calls for submissions, etc. Just a primary interview in each issue, fiction, memoir, poetry, and sunbeams (memorable short quotes).
I don't always love every single poem or entry in The Sun, and as always I want more authors of color, that could be improved, but overall I find the magazine engaging, relevant, and insightful. It's good quality publishing and I feel I've learned many things (implicitly) about the craft of writing from this magazine. This month's issue has an interview with Noam Chomsky, one of my favorite "dissident intellectuals."
The Chomsky interview, conducted by David Barsamian and entitled "Undermining Democracy: On How The U.S. Breeds Inequality At Home and Instability Abroad," was my Sunday midday break from grading and graduate homework. It was a treat to hold a real magazine in my hands (versus an electronic device) and read the piece. The topics discussed weren't by any means "light," but perhaps I enjoyed it so much because I was also indulging in an iced-coffee and two Cuban stuffed potato balls. This is my idea of a party--good words, good food.
Although Chomsky's linguistic theories are still a bit elusive to me, I really appreciate Chomsky's work. I like that he's constantly questioning assumptions. And when it comes to the political socio-economic realities of the world, Chomsky really knows how to break things down in concrete terms. Talk about someone "unpacking" meaning. This might sound corny, but I also love reading and listening to Chomsky because I believe him to be a decent human being who genuinely cares about the world. That definitely emanates from his words and his life's work, and I have a lot of respect for that.
For more info on The Sun Magazine: http://thesunmagazine.org/
Of course you'd expect to get the following question, as this is a TESOL blog, about Chomsky. What do you think about his theory of Universal Grammar. I've studied a bit of Chomsky's political philosophy and do find him to be quite a "dissident." But his theory of Universal Grammar seems so scientific and lacks his usual rebellious charisma. Although I guess that UG did overturn earlier theories of SLA, for example, behaviorism.
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