From 1921 to 1924, he was postmaster at the Post Office branch for Ole Miss in Oxford. “Faulkner would open and close the office whenever he felt like it, he would read other people’s magazines, he would throw out any mail he thought unimportant, he would play cards with his friends or write in the back while patrons waited out front.”
A Grand Unified Theory Of Keira Knightley’s History Movies
Listen, you might think the actor’s movie choices are random. Au contraire, mes frères: The luminous star of the new Colette is (sometimes literally) sticking it to The Man. “In all of Knightley’s historical films, she is at the center. She is not relegated to the role of love interest; men are. Romances, marriages, children, and dalliances are all secondary to her own development — as a woman, but also as the protagonist in her own life story, no matter how tragic it may become.”
Goodreads Removes Issues Of Two Speculative Fiction Magazines That Focus On Authors Of Color, But Does Goodreads Even Know Its Own Rules?
Volunteer librarians run Goodreads, sort of. Or do they? And is it true that Goodreads doesn’t allow magazines without ISBNs, or are Goodreads’ rules somewhat, shall we say, open to interpretation? It’s a kerfuffle for the Amazon-owned site.
When A Public Radio Pro Turns To Solo Podcasting (And Wonders If He’s Going Insane)
Public radio fans may remember Scott Carrier from his segments (many involving long road trips) on This American Life. In 2015, he switched to podcasting, reporting and producing the series The Home of the Brave with funding provided solely by listeners. Barrett Golding, who co-founded with Carrier the Peabody Award-winning NPR project Hearing Voices, talks with him about the transition to solo work and everything that it takes (and takes out of you).
Misty Copeland: Instagram Is Bringing People To Dance
“I’ve connected with the most people using Instagram’s platform,” she said. “I just think that it allows people who may have felt intimidated — or they didn’t belong in [spaces] like the Metropolitan Opera House — it kind of gives them a view into my world.”
Is Firing NY Review Of Books Editor A Chilling Of Intellectual Courage?
Laura Kipness: “Allocution is a tough genre. But even when the account is disingenuous and self-pitying, I’m interested in what the accused have to say for themselves, including those I think are guilty and despicable and who haven’t learned the proper lessons from their crimes. One of the reasons we read prison literature is because we’re all guilty and despicable. One of the reasons we read literature as such is to know what it’s like to be a criminal, a coward, a refugee, a pariah. In other words, human. Something significant was lost last week.”
Where Does Language Come From? The Mind Or The Land?
The English philosopher Owen Barfield, a member of the Oxford Inklings in the 1930s and ’40s, whose work as a philologist convinced him that the Romantic tradition was broadly right, put it succinctly. Words have soul, he said. They possess a vitality that mirrors the inner life of the world, and this connection is the source of their power. All forms of language implicitly deploy it. Poets are arguably more alert to it because they consciously seek it out.
Scotland Races To Protect Historical Sites From Rising Waters Of Climate Change
More than 3,000 archaeological sites — among them standing stone circles, Norse halls and a Neolithic tomb graffitied by Vikings — have endured for millenniums, scattered across the roughly 70 islands that make up the Orkney archipelago. Today, in forays to remote spits of land, people are working to save some of these places for posterity from the climate changes accelerated by human activity.
A Case For Philanthropic Risk Investment In The Arts
“I think the key thing with philanthropy is, if you want to normalise the practice you’ve got to make it public and normal. So if want philanthropy to invest in the arts and in creative development, and we want that to be normal, you’ve got to advertise it, not be shy to talk about your giving. And so eventually with philanthropy generally, giving will become normal; it will become normal to give when you have wealth to give money away.”
What Do Humans Need Religion For? Managing Our Emotions
“How we feel is as important to our survival as how we think. Our species comes equipped with adaptive emotions, such as fear, rage, lust and so on: religion was (and is) the cultural system that dials these feelings and behaviours up or down. We see this clearly if we look at mainstream religion, rather than the deleterious forms of extremism. Mainstream religion reduces anxiety, stress and depression. It provides existential meaning and hope. It focuses aggression and fear against enemies. It domesticates lust, and it strengthens filial connections. Through story, it trains feelings of empathy and compassion for others. And it provides consolation for suffering.”
Deborah Marrow To Retire As Director Of The Getty Foundation
Marrow’s tenure at the Getty began more than 30 years ago, in 1983, when she was hired as publications coordinator. In 1989, she took up a form of her current job, serving as director of what was at the time titled the Getty Grant Program, according to a news release. She assumed her current title in 2004, when the Getty Foundation was christened.
Archaeologists Discover Enormous Ancient Structure In Egypt
Last week, archaeologists found a sandstone sphinx when they were excavating a temple near the city of Aswan, in southern Egypt. The statue was found close to a site where two reliefs of King Ptolemy V were recovered two months prior, according to the American University in Cairo.
The Art World Had Its Own Alan Sokal, Back In The 1920s
“In 1924, American literary scholar and author Paul Jordan-Smith adopted a new identity: Pavel Jerdanowitch, an avant-garde Russian artist whose visceral paintings would beguile modern art critics. Parading as Jerdanowitch for the next three years, Jordan-Smith gained traction at the helm of his one-man art movement, which he called Disumbrationism. But Jordan-Smith wasn’t a brooding artist from Moscow, and Disumbrationism was less of an aesthetic than it was a practical joke intended to shame the art world.”
After 40-Odd Years, We’ll Finally Be Able To Watch Orson Welles’s Last Film
Even by his standards, the making of The Other Side of the Wind was a long and messy process; he did finally finish shooting, but he never finished fussing over the editing before he died in 1985. But, thanks to hard work from friends and colleagues and funding from Netflix, a plausible version of the movie will be available for streaming in November. Writer Craig Hubert explains the story, the satire (very meta), and the fistfight with Ernest Hemingway that started it all.
Iran’s Art Scene Has Been Booming – Could Trump’s Sanctions Stifle It?
“In 2016, a Tehran art auction attracted record sales of $7.4 million, sparking hopes that the market was buoyed by cooling relations between Iran and the West. … [Yet,] from trade sanctions to the travel ban, global power politics may be influencing the way the West views Iran. For the country’s artists, this raises questions about whether the art boom will be halted — or even reversed — by the Trump administration’s deteriorating relations with their government.”
Prominent Writers Protest Removal Of NY Review Of Books Editor
DNA Tests Are DNA – They Don’t Tell You Your Culture
There’s an Ancestry ad where a man trades his lederhosen for a kilt. And another where a woman traces her ancestry to the matriarchal Akan people of Ghana to conclude, “When I found you in my DNA, I learned where my strength comes from.” And yet another where a man bonds with his Irish neighbor after finding out his own DNA is 15 percent Irish. But marketing campaigns for genetic-ancestry tests also tap into the idea that DNA is deterministic, that genetic differences are meaningful. They trade in the prestige of genomic science, making DNA out to be far more important in our cultural identities than it is, in order to sell more stuff.
Repositioning Theatre As Community Center
In many ways a theatre can be compared to a community center—both are public places to gather, to socialize, to learn, to be entertained. Now some theatres are intentionally taking up the mantle, fashioning themselves into civic hubs where engagement programs are designed to connect onstage programming with audiences apart from their time in a darkened theatre, and to create initiatives to address specific needs in the community.
Cosby’s Hollywood Star Will Remain
Hollywood Chamber of Commerce: “The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a historical record of entertainment figures past and present. Once installed, the stars become part of the historic fabric of the Walk of Fame, a ‘designated historic cultural landmark,’ and are intended to be permanent. The stars only commemorate the recipient’s professional accomplishments.”
Sydney Goldstein, Founder Of San Francisco’s City Arts & Lectures, Dies At 73
City Arts & Lectures began in 1980, and Goldstein ran it for 37 years, before turning it over to her daughter and Holly Mulder-Wollan in July 2017. The series at Nourse Theater offers more than 50 programs a year before a live audience of up to 100,000 annually.
A Scottish Town’s Attempt To Be Bilbao. Will It Work?
It’s not yet entirely clear to what extent Dundee’s plan to replicate the Bilbao Effect will work. Certainly, the V&A Dundee itself is impressive—as well it should be, given that its initial predicted budget of £27 million ($35 million) rose first to £45 million ($59 million) and then to £80 million ($105 million), with the lion’s share coming from public funds. Designed by Kengo Kuma, the building is an unquestionably evocative one that, depending on your viewpoint and the weather, might seem to resemble a cliff, the bones of some giant sea creature, or a ship.
Report: Cultural Attendance Is Up In Scotland
Attendance at cultural events or places in the country, which was 78% in 2012, has now risen to 84%. The figures include attendance at live music, cinemas, museums, theatres and libraries. When cinemas are excluded, the proportion of people attending cultural events or places has risen from 70% to 77% during this period. The biggest rise was for historical and archaeological sites.
At Work With The Sound Mixer At The Metropolitan Opera
David Frost controls the soundboard for all of broadcasts for terrestrial and satellite radio, for the company’s in-house records, and for the HD cinema simulcasts. Joshua Barone watched him work on opening night: “He sits in a booth, following along with a conductor’s score and constantly adjusting several dozen faders, dials that control the levels on microphones set up onstage and throughout the orchestra pit. With the appearance of an organist juggling complex polyphony, he aims to match the high quality of studio recordings — only in real time.”
The Rehabilitation Of Mel Gibson
“The Hollywood redemption machine is always ripe for satire, since its formula is so depressingly simple. Take one once-beloved artist, add a bottled statement of apology, give them just long enough for their worst misdeeds to fade somewhat from public memory, and combine with the industry’s never-ending desire to use great artistry as an antidote to past sins.”
When I Danced With Arthur Mitchell In Moscow At The Height Of The Cold War: Allegra Kent
“Arthur and I were dancing in Balanchine’s Agon, with music by Igor Stravinsky, the last ballet on the program. Balanchine was nervous. The cast was nervous. But not Arthur. (Arthur was never nervous.) In the wings before our pas de deux, he could see I was jumping out of my skin. He said, ‘This is just a small town, Allegra’” What he said was so ludicrous that it calmed me down.”