Jonathan Franzen wrote an very long and detailed critique of our “media-saturated, technology-crazed, apocalypse-haunted” modern world (I was too distracted by the iPhone’s new ringtones to read the whole thing). The New Yorker’s Maria Bustillos argues that “Franzen really ought to just come online and talk with everybody.”

+ Franzen has been making similar arguments for years. What I’ve never understood is why Franzen is so critical of an era in which he has thrived. We can’t read, we can’t focus, we’re too distracted. Well, then how the hell is he selling so many books? After seeing Franzen speak a couple years ago, I came to the conclusion that he is, whether he likes it or not, the Internet era’s unlikely poster child.

+ In Esquire, Tom Junod hits on something Internet publishers have been seeing for the past few years. In the age of short blurbs and 140 character summaries, longform content is kicking ass.