So this is our 1000th post, and we just gotta say thanks for the follows, reblogs, and other love.
Is it too early to look back a little? Probably, but allow us the indulgence of that sickly sweet backwards glance. Here are 10 posts that, for whatever sentimental reason, feel especially significant:
- The very first Sunday’s Poem.
- A picture of Davy Crockett.
- Duff McKagan’s Year in Reading 2011.
- A birthday card for Edith Wharton.
- Our entire Valentine’s day series, but this poem, by Dorothea Grossman, in particular.
- Also that one day we had an impromptu Irish Lit-a-thon, but especially this excerpt from Samuel Beckett’s Watt.
- Troll Franzen.
- Our #writespace round ups.
- That time we did a #LitBeat for Dear Sugar.
- This picture of The Notorious B.I.G.
Ahh, memories.
Don’t worry though, we’ve got much more down the pipe. We’re practically just getting started. Here’s to 1000 more posts!

I was getting annoyed at the way Occupy Wall Street was being covered — as if it was insane to gather in a public space and protest. As if it had never happened in America before. Wasn’t the whole point of passive resistance to just be there? To not make any demands? As I tried to come up with a good parallel, I found myself thinking of Bartleby, the Scrivener, Herman Melville’s short story about an office worker, Bartleby, who decides out of nowhere that he doesn’t feel like working anymore, but continues to show up at the office every day. Bartleby’s idleness baffles and then infuriates his boss, who begs Bartleby to give some reason for his behavior. But Bartleby refuses to disclose his interests, and over the course of the story, his needs become so few that he dies of starvation. It’s a bleak, mysterious story, and as I returned to my copy to reread it, I was stilled to rediscover its subtitle: “A Story of Wall Street.”
Hannah Gersen, for The Millions, on October 11th, a full month before Melville’s novella was read aloud as part of the Occupy movement’s demonstrations in Zuccotti Park.
Photo Credit: Richard Grayson
This post is part of our “Best of 2011” series, which highlights exceptional original pieces that have been published on The Millions this year.
Source: themillions.com

