The February issue has arrived! Inside: Leslie Jamison’s essay on medical acting, The Empathy Exams, Colin Dickey on the enduring mystery of Sir John Franklin, Michael Schulman on OK Cola, interviews with Lydia Millet, Donald Antrim, Patrice Wilson, reviews on the melodica and The Habit Of Rivers, stuff Nick Hornby’s been reading, an amble through the visual world with Lawrence Weschler, Greil Marcus, Daniel Handler, and more!

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What’s inside:

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison [Full text]
Acting out pain until that pain becomes real, for $13.50 an hour.

Everything Is Going to Be OK by Michael Schulman
In 1994, the Coca-Cola Company created an apathetic soda brand to win the hearts of Generation X. It didn’t work.

On the Open Polar Sea by Colin Dickey
Near the North Pole, discredited science makes for great science fiction.

Lydia Millet interviewed by Colin Winnette [Full text]
The novelist discusses her early-’90s stint working as a copy editor” at Hustler magazine.

What the Swedes Read by Daniel Handler

“Comics,” edited by Alvin Buenaventura

Schema: Literary Technoprognosticators, Michael Barron
Tracing many of life’s modern conveniences back to novels and short stories.

Reviews
Stephen Burt on the melodica, Nathan Jandl on Ted Leeson [Full text], Mark Susman on Daniel Spoerri

Pillow of Air by Lawrence Weschler

Diana Reiss interviewed by Meehan Crist
The animal-cognition researcher explains explains how dolphins are a little like human children and a lot like aliens.

“H-Bomb”: a new poem by Tyler Mills [Full text]

Real Life Rock Top Ten by Greil Marcus

Patrice Wilson interviewed by John Semley [Full text]
The songwriter/producer/viral-video mastermind on the haters and on rhyming broccoli with Monopoly.

Stuff I’ve Been Reading by Nick Hornby