Chetan Bhagat, a former Goldman Sachs banker, has published five books, all romances and all selling more than a million copies. Bhagat concedes to his many critics that his works aren’t great literature, but argues that they encourage social mobility.
Tag: 01.23.11
The Princess Industrial Complex: Little Girls in Pink All Over
Author Peggy Orenstein was at “a toy fair, held at the Javits Center in New York, at which the merchandise for girls seems to come in only one color: pink jewelry boxes, pink vanity mirrors, pink telephones, pink hair dryers, pink fur stoles. ‘Is all this pink really necessary?’ Orenstein finally asks a sales rep. ‘Only if you want to make money,’ he replies.”
What Does Nacho Duato Want From His New Russian Ballet Company?
“I want to teach the [Russian] dancers to enjoy modern dance, to move their bodies in a different way, to touch each other in a different way, to be more contemporary like people in the streets.”
Independent Bookstores Retool
“While the number of independent bookstores has stabilized after years of decline, according to membership in their national trade association, the stores are still fighting some of the same forces that caused their ranks to diminish years ago. Amazon still rules online bookselling, while Barnes & Noble, the biggest of the book chains, is retooling itself for the digital age.”
Reinventing The Concert Hall
“Gehry’s concert hall for the New World Symphony, an elite training orchestra that is one of the most innovative musical organizations in the country, is the first American concert space built from the ground up to include sophisticated video, theater-style lighting and flexible stage space that can accommodate not just an orchestra, but soloists and chamber groups. It also happens to be one of Gehry’s best buildings in years.”
Can A Novelist Write Philosophically?
“Philosophy has historically viewed literature with suspicion, or at least a vague unease. Most philosophers are wary of the aesthetic urge in themselves. It says something about philosophy that two of its greatest practitioners, Aristotle and Kant, were pretty terrible writers.”
Challenges Of A National Black Museum
“Will the story end with the country’s having overcome its shameful history and approaching a state of racial harmony and equality? Or will the museum argue that the legacy of racism is still dominant — and, if so, how will it make that case?”
Artist Dennis Oppenheim, 72
“He was one of the first conceptual land artists in the 1960s, and made his mark, too, on the Body Art and conceptual art movements. By the 1980s he was making complex constructions he called “machine works.” His art was always eclectic, taking on several manifestations, including installation, performance art and video.”
Remember That Time Back In The 80s When Australia Wanted To Produce The Great Global Musical (Think Les Miz…)
“Given the nature of this top-down quest to make a Broadway-style musical, many works were overcapitalised and overblown before they had a first showing. Works such as Petrov and Paris (one of Jon English’s dogged projects) were dead on arrival.”
Is Art Based On Real Events Wrecking Story-Telling?
“Artists basing work on real people and events is hardly a new phenomenon. Even so, there has been a shift in recent years away from works of pure imagination towards ones that combine fact and fiction. This has been the case in every story-based medium.”