Pollux writes:

"In the country of Westphalia... lived a youth whom Nature had endowed with a most sweet disposition. His face was the true index of his mind. He had a solid judgment joined to the most unaffected simplicity; and hence, I presume, he had his name of Candide."

With these words, Voltaire pays tribute to his creation. The New York Public Library is now featuring an online exhibition for Voltaire's Candide in which you can pay your own tribute to this 18th century work.

It's not just any online gallery. This exhibition is calling all artists and readers to contribute their own visions, tributes, and adaptations of Candide. Here is the link for Do-It-Yourself-Candide. Have fun!

Martin Schneider writes:

A new issue of The New Yorker comes out today. It is the Cartoon Issue. A preview of its contents, adapted from the magazine's press release:

In this year's Cartoon Issue, "The Funnies" features cartoons by Pat Byrnes, Drew Dernavich, Matthew Diffee, William Haefeli, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Marisa Acocella Marchetto, Victoria Roberts, David Sipress, Mike Twohy, P. C. Vey, Christopher Weyant, and Jack Ziegler.

Chris Ware relates a family drama in a comic strip.

"I Don't Get It" explains some of the more obscure cartoons that have run in our pages.

Roz Chast envisions a social-networking site for the antisocial.

Zachary Kanin reveals the shocking truth about vampires.

Also, we introduce the Cartoon Kit Contest with "Talk Show," featuring drawings by

Emily Gordon writes:

I haven't done any link roundups in a while, but here are a few I think you'll dig as we all gear up, from near and from far, for The New Yorker Festival. This post is also a celebration of some writer friends whose preoccupations often collide with mine:

My friend and Print contributing editor Bill Kartalopoulos comments on R. Crumb's new Biblical epic.

My friend and thug-thumping Wisconsin labor advocate Dustin Beilke interviews the great Lorrie Moore for The Onion's AV Club. I reviewed her terrific new book, A Gate at the Stairs, for Newsday.

I can't get enough of posts about the typography in Mad Men. These are already classics: my friend and content-strategist-about-town Andrew Hearst on the "jarring anachronism" of using Arial in the end credits; and Mark Simonson, designer and type designer, on--well, just read it. Featuring a cameo by our beloved Gill Sans.

And this isn't exactly New Yorker-related, but Sophie Pollitt-Cohen, my favorite former babysat child (we need to coin a word for this) and frighteningly bright daughter of Katha "Learning to Drive" Pollitt and Randy "The Ethicist" Cohen (who are contributors), has a very funny new Huffington Post piece up about "comic books inspired by verse." Speaking of being inspired by verse, happy birthday, Katha, far away in Berlin but always close to my thoughts!

Martin Schneider writes:

A new issue of The New Yorker comes out today. A preview of its contents, adapted from the magazine's press release:

In "Offensive Play," Malcolm Gladwell wonders if the football fans who have recently been horrified by the quarterback Michael Vick's involvement in dogfighting are overlooking the more troubling aspects of their own sport. "Part of what makes dogfighting so repulsive is the understanding that violence and injury cannot be removed from the sport," Gladwell writes. Yet scientists have recently found evidence that the violence inherent in football can result in serious brain degeneration for players, long after their playing days are over.

In "The Secret Keeper," William Finnegan explores how Jules Kroll pioneered the corporate-intelligence industry, growing his business from a side job, investigating kickbacks in his father's printing business, to Kroll, Inc., "the world's preëminent detective agency, with three thousand employees, countless subcontractors, and offices in sixty cities in more than thirty-five countries."

In "The Gossip Mill," Rebecca Mead writes about Alloy Entertainment, the company

Jonathan Taylor writes:

Not long after waking up and learning that Herta Müller had won the Literature Nobel, I noticed in my Google Reader that Signandsight.com, hours before the announcement, had published a translation of a recent piece by her about the lingering power of Romania's former Securitate, from Germany's Die Zeit.

Suddenly I found my file, too, under the name of Cristina. Three volumes, 914 pages. It was allegedly opened on 8 March, 1983 - although it contains documents from earlier years. The reason given for opening the file: "Tendentious distortions of realities in the country, particularly in the village environment" in my book "Nadirs". Textual analysis by spies corroborate this. And the fact that I belong to a "circle of German-language poets", which is "renowned for its hostile works".