“The Twa Sisters,” a ballad about deadly sibling rivalry that was first notated and catalogued in Scotland in 1806; it turns out to have at least 531 variants (with several different denouements) spread throughout Europe and over much of the rest of the world.
Tag: 02.11.16
Should Taxpayers Even Be Funding The Arts At All? Michael Lind Makes The Case Against
“The NEA Literature Fellowships program, for example, offers $25,000 grants in poetry and prose …Why should writers get $25,000 for ‘travel, and general career advancement’ but not janitors, or home health aides, or car mechanics, all of whom could use the money more than ‘creative writers,’ a group drawn mostly [sic] from the upper middle class and the rich?”
Kafka Wasn’t Just A Tortured Neurotic
“He loved beer and slapstick. He undertook a fitness regime popularized by a Dutch exercise guru. He tried to cheat on his high-school exams. He used his desk as a metaphor for self-parody and waxed lyrical about the Paris metro.”
How Did This Group Shoot A Mindbendingly Great Music Video In Zero Gravity?
“The new video is but the latest reminder that OK Go is a band, yes, but also something more. Ross says the band sees itself a kind of freewheeling creative factory, where catchy songs exist alongside viral videos, and things like collaborations with airlines and experiments like OK Go working to encode its latest album, Hungry Ghosts—from which ‘Upside Down & Inside Out’ is taken—onto strands of DNA.”
The Best (And Possibly Only) Article About Justin Bieber That You’ll Ever Need To Read
“It’s unsettling to share a personal story, or ask a long-winded question, and be met with Justin Bieber’s silent, cool-eyed stare the entire time you’re talking. Justin Bieber makes eye contact like a person who has been told that eye contact is very, very important.”
Germany Has Produced Great Cinema. But It’s Been A While And Germans Are Asking Why
“To be fair, whinging that no German cinema movement has proved as influential or productive as the New German Cinema movement circa 1962-1982ish is bit of a non-starter, as one could argue that no national cinema movement since has proved as influential or productive as the New German Cinema. But if there’s no worthwhile national film culture in Germany, if German films have no future, then why do Berliners seem to go ga-ga for their annual film fete?”
The Perils Of Writing About Sex In Your Fiction
“Should you use exotic euphemisms or anatomical detail? Should it be comical, tender or shocking? And what if your mum reads it? Three generations of writers reveal the pitfalls – and pleasures – of writing about erotic encounters.”
Great Art Should Belong To The World (But Then There Are The Collectors)
“The problem with collecting masterworks of great artists is that the act of ownership is in itself a kind of theft, stealing from the public commons of genius.”
Aaron Sorkin Adapting ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’? Bad Idea
Scott Timberg: “Velocity is Sorkin’s great gift, but this guy’s going to slip into the cadence of small-town Depression-era Alabama? … [And] despite the centrality of Atticus, … the novel’s narrating character is not him but Scout, a woman recalling a story of her girlhood. How many of Sorkin’s best characters have been girls or women?”
Was Facebook’s Free Basics Program In India A Good Deed Or Colonialism Redux?
“It tries to solve a problem it doesn’t understand, but it doesn’t need to understand the problem because it already knows the solution. … When Zuckerberg or Andreessen face criticism, they argue that their critics are being elitist and inhumane – after all, who could be against helping India develop? The rhetoric is rich with the White Man’s Burden.”