“An artist who scratches out frescoes of farmyard scenes and animals on her neighbours’ milk bottles and leaves them without explanation has revealed herself. The artist had mystified the village of Stourbridge, in the West Midlands, for months.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Is E-Literature Just One Big Anti-Climax?
“Since its inception, e-lit has been struggling to free itself from its generic limitations and now seems to be on the verge of doing so. At long last. Although interesting, its early manifestations were hardly groundbreaking… Besides, if you really want to add sound and pictures to words, why not make a film?”
Spike Lee on Obama (and His New Film)
“People like [the character] Stamps have so much faith that one day America would deliver on its promise that everyone is created equal. And we are now closer to that than any other time in this country. In 2008, we are on the verge of having a black man as president. I think that that is a sign of the greatness of this country.”
The Problem with Spanking Kids (And Why We Keep Doing It)
“The science also shows that corporal punishment is like smoking: It’s a rare human being who can refrain from stepping up from a mild, relatively harmless dose to an excessive and harmful one. Three cigarettes a month won’t hurt you much, and a little smack on the behind once a month won’t harm your child. But who smokes three cigarettes a month?”
The Army’s Top Anthropologist
“But as a simple regime-change operation in Iraq descended into a baffling counterinsurgency, it became clear that you can have the most advanced… [equipment], but without any insight into the civilian population – or at least some sense of how they’ll react to your moves – your war effort is sunk.”
Headscarves and Kalashnikovs – The Women of the Kabul Police Academy
“Of the over 1,600 cadets at the Kabul Police Academy, only 10 are women. They are breaking traditions and taking considerable personal risk.”
Why Can’t Science Journalists Just Tell It Like It Is When It Comes to Particle Physics?
“God was mostly off the table in recent weeks – except in His particle form – as the Large Hadron Collider revved up for a massive series of experiments in subatomic physics. But among science journalists, there was plenty of protective coloration of another variety. Much of the prose from the hundreds of stories heralding the event arced decidedly toward the purple.”
Rothko as Blockbuster – What Could It Mean?
“[T]hat it is Rothko, rather than say Vermeer or Monet, who will be pulling in the crowds from all over the country, seems to indicate an important shift in the cultural landscape. What is more, the men and women who will, from tomorrow, pour into Tate Modern to admire and wonder at Rothko’s work are not part of a suddenly expanded Modernist cognoscenti. Rather they are ordinary people who aspire to see more in his work than enormous, vaporous splurges of paint.”
In Japan, Newspapers Don’t Just Cover Exhibitions, They Present Them
“Media involvement in art exhibitions began in Japan in the 1920s, when the country didn’t really have so many museums… The newspaper companies would send people overseas, where they would liaise with foreign salons and institutions, borrow works and bring them back for shows in venues ranging from department stores to private halls. By the time dedicated public museums appeared here – mostly after World War II – the newspaper companies had a monopoly on the networks and knowhow.”
Tips on Learning a Dying Trade
Having taught us how to write fiction, poetry, comedy, play and movie scripts and biography, The Guardian now offers us a primer on journalism.