Tag: 02.02.15

Anton Chekhov Wrote The Best Work Of Journalism Of The 19th Century

Akhil Sharma on Sakhalin Island, an account of life in prison camps in that isolated spot off Siberia’s Pacific coast: “The fact that so few people know of the book, and that among Western critics (not necessarily Russian ones) it is considered a minor masterpiece instead of a major one … has something to do with how journalism is rarely considered literature. But it has even more to do with the lies that Chekhov told to get access to the prison colony.”

Professional Dance Critic Defends Super Bowl’s “Bad Left Shark”

“The breakout stars of last night’s Super Bowl halftime show were, needless to say, the sharks. Flanking Katy Perry, they mutely waved their fins and flapped their jaws to the words of ‘Teenage Dream.’ … But Left Shark, (who, for what it’s worth, was actually ‘stage right shark’), visibly struggling with the choreography, promptly became the butt of the internet’s jokes.” But we should cut him some slack. (includes video)

David Oyelowo Had To Tell His Son He Can Be More In Movies Than A White Man’s Best Friend

“It’s because films like Selma are so rarely made that we end up putting them under the microscope. One, maybe two, a year. As a white person, you don’t have that. You have the gamut. No one says to Oliver Stone: ‘Another film about Vietnam? White characters again?’ Benedict Cumberbatch is never asked, ‘What, you’re playing another historical character?'”

Such A Stoic: How Seneca Became Ancient Rome’s Philosopher-Fixer

“Even in imperial Rome, matricide was, apparently, bad P.R. … And so Nero turned to the man he had always relied on … The letter ‘explaining’ Agrippina’s murder is just one of the ways Seneca propped up Nero’s regime – a regime that the average Julius, let alone the author of De Ira, surely realized was thoroughly corrupt. How to explain the philosopher-tutor’s sticking by his monstrous pupil?”