— Junot Diaz on Barack Obama and the importance of crafting a story. I tend to talk shit about Junot Diaz, partly because of his facile, crowd-pleasing pop-culture references, like the one he drops in the first paragraph here. But his overall point—that stories are more powerful than people, and President Obama needs to start telling better ones—is right in line with everything this blog is advocating.

— Another way that storytelling operates in our public lives: the dangerous metaphor of calling a corporation a human being.

— Sweet tooth fairies. Remote control freaks. Poetic license plates.

— There’s no arguing with a good T.C. Boyle story. Somebody put this man to work in the White House.

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