He’s a genius! No, really! (updated)

Jonathan Lethem just won a MacArthur. (Thx to Reechard, for the heads up.) Holla!

I imagine this is the award that will launch a thousand posts. And I love how the one sentence USA Today bio understates things:

Jonathan Lethem, 41, New York City writer whose work has been published in The New Yorker and Rolling Stone

Although I suppose saying that just dropping The New Yorker’s name is understating it is overstating it.

Update: "Conversation at a Book Store" — no doubt all in good fun.

And another: Matt Cheney weighs in at The Mumpsimus.