Will this be a boon to artists? “The experiment seeks to challenge the notion that people who receive public money need to be patrolled and punished, said Horst. The traditional criticism of basic income is that it does not incentivize people to work, and thereby damages the economy.”
Vladimir Nabokov, American Novelist: How A Dispossessed Tsarist Aristocrat Became The Guy Who Got The Dead-On Americana Of “Lolita”
“Nabokov arrived on these shores, penniless and without prospects, in 1941, at the age of forty, having only begun writing in English shortly before his flight from Europe. How could a book so thoroughly – so definingly – American have arisen … from so seemingly unlikely a source?”
ISIS Is Brutal And Barbaric. But It Appeals To An Old Mythology
“Tolkien’s mythology, unlike that of ISIS, is steadfastly un-apocalyptic. But many readers, it seems, thrill to the notion of finding a king to whom they can pledge their swords without scruple or hesitation. Indeed, it is sometimes claimed that the patently adolescent politics of Tolkien’s Middle Earth represent a true and valid model for real-world humans.”
Dumb Criminals, Precocious Animals, And The Entire State Of Florida: How Oddball Items Came To Dominate The News Business
“The rise of clickbait has made weirdness ubiquitous, but it has also selected for those memes that are just weird enough to glide smoothly through social media: things that are unexpected in the most expected kind of way.”
The Curious Remaking Of David Foster Wallace
“He has become a character, an icon, and in some circles a saint. A writer who courted contradiction and paradox, who could come on as a curmudgeon and a scold, who emerged from an avant-garde tradition and never retreated into conventional realism, he has been reduced to a wisdom-dispensing sage on the one hand and shorthand for the Writer As Tortured Soul on the other.”
Can A Theatre Critic Be A Good Playwright?
“Does writing regularly about theatre make you a stronger playwright? I feel I’ve benefited from soaking up others’ work for years; I’m in a constant state of inspiration. (Sometimes I have to tell my own characters to pipe down so I can focus on the show.) My defense has always been that I was an artist—acting and directing Off-Off Broadway—before I became a critic. But there has to be some level of talent to nurture in the first place. If you have an ear for dialogue, an eye for structure, a feel for storytelling, reviewing can sharpen those gifts.”
Book Subscription Service Stops Offering Romance And Erotica Titles Because Its Readers Read Them Too Much
“Scribd appears to have slightly underestimated just how much can be consumed at their all-you-can-eat literary buffet – especially by fans of romance. Because Scribd has to pay the authors of the books they make available on their site, it is now shelling out more money than it can make back in subscriptions, thanks to the voracious appetites of romance and erotica readers.”
The 12 Most Controversial Opera Productions
Opera has never been a stranger to controversy. It’s part of its allure. Here are twelve opera productions that shocked…
Remembering Gunther Schuller
“Although he coined the expression “third stream” in the late 1950s as a suitable epithet for his own amalgam of classical and jazz forms, his music was technically complex and demanding. Hence it never secured a wide and sympathetic audience in his lifetime.”
Why Does The Work Of Great Artists Get Destroyed?
The motivation for destroying an artist’s work is often shadowy, and always riven with questions of ownership.
There’s Almost Never A Good Reason To Include A Rape Scene In Art
“Because rape is widely acknowledged as a Very Serious Topic, there’s also a tendency to treat rape scenes as a means to be edgy or shocking. You know, as a way of creating really serious, mature content. Most of the time, however, this approach radiates nothing so much as ignorance and immaturity.”
James Patterson Gives Money For Books To 127 Schools
“In March, Patterson invited librarians, teachers and principals to apply for $1,000 to $10,000 grants. Scholastic Reading Club, a division of children’s publisher Scholastic, pledged to match each grant with bonus points that can be used for books and classroom materials. More than 28,000 applications came pouring in.”
Misty Copeland Talks About Being Promoted To Principal At ABT
Ms. Copeland said she had been pleased to see more racially diverse audiences turn out at some of her performances in the past year. “From the day that I met my manager, Gilda Squire, she asked me, ‘What do you want to do?’ ” she recalled. “And I said, besides continue dancing at A.B.T., I want to bring more people to ballet, I want to see more people that look like me on the stage, in the school, and in the audience — on the board.”
Netflix Isn’t Trying To Change TV, It’s Thinking Post-TV
“That all-at-once drop of House of Cards, for example, illustrates part of what Netflix has that television doesn’t. “It was not meant to be the template” for how Netflix would release shows, Sarandos said. “It was just, Let’s see how people watch it.” They had the flexibility to try something that would never work on TV, and the data to see immediately how users responded.”
The World’s First “Metaphor Map”
“Over the past 30 years, it has become clear that metaphor is not simply a literary phenomenon; metaphorical thinking underlies the way we make sense of the world conceptually. It governs how we think and how we talk about our day-to-day lives.”
What Tech Startups Can Learn From The Art Market
“The art of the startup and the business of art are flip sides of the same creative process. The Gagosian Gallery and Kleiner Perkins use the same method to spin creativity and value out of manmade volatility. The goals of this volatility are twofold: primarily to create disruptive innovation that generates the unique, the original, and the most valuable; and next to raise the price paid for the new value, whether it is a Monet or an Airbnb IPO.”
A 60-Year-Old Infographic That Explains Disney’s Strategy Today
“Today, the network is larger, there are more platforms, and the path to success can get awfully messy, but the basic strategy is the same. Instead of following the model of other studios—releasing many films and hoping for a blockbuster—Disney is select. It releases about 10 films annually and builds out the franchising and revenue-generating opportunities that come with the territory.”
How Video Game Music Has Changed Our Pop Music
“We are accustomed to thinking about pop music in terms of its most familiar metadata: songs and albums, scenes and artists. But what about all the other, seemingly incidental music that gets lodged in our heads, from commercial jingles to sitcom soundtracks? Could it be that the largely unknown Kondo, Nintendo’s first dedicated sound designer, was one of the great innovative forces of our time?”
Canadian Government Okays Sale Of Cirque Du Soleil To US, Chinese Investors
“Industry Minister James Moore said Tuesday the application to acquire the famed circus troupe was deemed an overall economic benefit for Canada. The buyers have committed to maintain the Cirque’s strategic decision-making and creative and artistic development at its Montreal headquarters.”
China’s Movie Box Office Up 50% In First Half Of 2015
“About $3.3 billion in tickets were sold in the first six months of the year, according to figures from film industry consulting firm Artisan Gateway. That’s a leap of 48.9% over the first half of 2014. Imported films accounted for 52.5% of ticket sales.”
Report: UK Creative Industries Employment Growing At Twice National Average
“Statistics released by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport found that jobs within the creative industries increased by 5.5% compared to the national 2.1% rise in employment between 2013 and 2014.”
Menil Collection Director To Step Down
“Under Josef Helfenstein, the Menil doubled its annual attendance, increased its endowment by almost 54 percent, and added more than 1,000 works to the collection, including pieces by Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra and Kara Walker.”
Why “Smart” Kids Often Don’t Turn Into Smart Adults
“When people perform well (academically or otherwise) at early ages and are labeled smart or gifted, they become less likely to challenge themselves. They become less likely to make mistakes, because they stay in their comfortable comfort zone and stop growing. And their fixed mindset persists through adulthood. The simple and innocent praising of a smart kid feeds an insidious problem that some researchers track all the way up to gender inequality in STEM careers.”
Misty Copeland Promoted To Principal At ABT
“Her promotion — after more than 14 years with the company, nearly eight as a soloist — came as Ms. Copeland’s fame spread far beyond traditional dance circles. She made the cover of Time magazine this year, was profiled by “60 Minutes” and presented a Tony Award on this year’s telecast. She has written a memoir and a children’s book, and has more than a half-million followers on Instagram.”
Crowdfunding To Recreate An Old TV Show As A Live Experience Smashes Its Funding Goals
The live immersive project has now raised more than £600,000 from close to 4,500 people in just 16 days, after reaching its £500,000 target last week. Money from fans just keeps on coming on the Indiegogo page, meaning “two extra games will be added to each zone”.