“In this video, [author Elif] Batuman reviews scenes from the first episode of [the wildly popular prime-time series] Magnificent Century and explains why a show fascinated by the past is a problem for Turkey’s political present.”
Tag: 02.17.14
Two Indian Authors Want Penguin to Pulp Their Books In Solidarity With Wendy Doniger
“Penguin authors Jyotirmaya Sharma and Siddharth Varadarajan have asked the publishing house to withdraw their books and pulp them. Both have emailed their demand to the under-fire publishing firm for agreeing to an out-of-court settlement with a [Hindu nationalist] group to do the same with Wendy Doniger’s book, The Hindus: An Alternative History.”
The Song-and-Dance Revue That Remade British Theatre
Michael Billington considers Oh, What a Lovely War.
Lewis Carroll Hated Fame So Much He Regretted Writing His Books
“A letter, written to a friend in 1891, reveals how Carroll hated people finding out his real name as he felt he would be pointed out and attract the attention of strangers.”
Should We Keep Children Out Of Museums?
“At one time the answer was simple: keep them out. The pleasures of a museum and a gallery are beyond them, so they’re bound to be bored, or inappropriately excited by the joys of running up and down the polished floors.”
Today’s Hyper Art Market Is Changing The Definition Of What It Means To Be A “Collector”
in the 21st century’s increasingly financialized market — where art is treated as an investment and where paintings are tracked and traded instantaneously — one has to ask, what does the word “collector” mean nowadays?
What Happens In Netflix Offices When “House Of Cards” Goes Live
“Unlike traditional TV, we use hundreds of different devices to go online. And last night, the engineers were there to make sure that House of Cards would play on every one of them.”
Lorne Michaels, the Kingmaker of Comedy
“His name is barely known in households outside the media elites of New York and California. Yet Michaels has enjoyed a career so wildly successful as to see him named ‘comedy’s most important man ever’ by The Hollywood Reporter.”
Charges Dropped Against Collector After 2½-Year-Long Antiquities Smuggling Case
Joe Lewis had been accused of smuggling, money-laundering and conspiracy charges over his purchase of ancient Egyptian items “as part of what the government termed the ‘first ever’ dismantling of a cultural property smuggling network in the U.S.”
I Have Seen the Future of Theatre – And It Froze and Crashed
Simon Tait: “When a plea has to go out [to the audience] for someone who can do Windows 8 and the visual still won’t go, it really doesn’t work … I don’t want to sneer at that misfortune, but to ask where the creativity sits with the technology.”