To Make Good Art, Be Ready To Make Bad Art (In Another Field)

When a playwright gets stuck: “I listen to jazz, particularly new artists I’m not familiar with. I watch films I’ve never seen before. I go to museums. I read science or history. But if I really want to shake the dust off my soul and reinvigorate myself creatively, I don’t just consume culture, I make some: not theater, mind you, but anything else.”

It’s World Book Day (With Millions Of Books To Be Given Away)

“Celebrated in over 100 countries around the world, World Book Day is the UK’s largest festival of reading and aims to encourage a lifelong love of literature in children. Thousands of schools and nurseries are joining in, with more than 14m book vouchers given out to children, and hundreds of events – from Where’s Wally ‘flash mobs’ to author talks and literary fancy dress competitions – taking place up and down the country.”

Alex Ross: Enough With The “Science” Of How Music Works, Already!

‘So many of these how-does-music-work articles and books seem to view music as one thing, as a standardized mechanical apparatus whose tricks can be figured out. And music is peculiarly prey to trivializing questions. Perhaps I’m overlooking stories in other fields, but I don’t seem to see headlines along the lines of ‘How do paintings make us feel?’ or ‘Why do movies with unhappy endings make us cry?’ or ‘What about thrillers makes us tense?’ ”

The Rise Of The Video Book Trailer

“Born only a few years ago on YouTube, video trailers are becoming more or less de rigueur for any book’s marketing campaign (if it has one; a relatively rare honour, of course). … These are terrific diversions, but their status next to the book is a little ambiguous. Isn’t using animation to advertise a book a little like using sculpture to promote poetry?”