“I’ve imagined Plato shuddering at a certain conception of the field he helped to shape. Would he likewise shudder at having been left so far behind by that field?”
Tag: 04.14.14
In The Internet Age Do We Still Need Editors Of Vision?
“The role of editor emerged in an era of constraint: there are only so many words and pictures you can fit into fifty pages of newsprint. We now live in the age of abundance, in which anything and everything can be published. There is, in theory, less need for an editor to say what works and what doesn’t.”
Random House Wins Bidding To Publish New Shirley Jackson Collection
“The new collection, called Garlic in Fiction, is edited by two of Ms. Jackson’s children … and includes her fiction (like the short story ‘Paranoia,’ which was published for the first time in The New Yorker last summer), as well as drawings, lectures and works of nonfiction that previously appeared in women’s magazines of the 1940s and ’50s.”
The Ten Best Documentaries Of All Time, Per The New Yorker’s Film Blogger
Richard Brody: “I’m the first to admit that it’s a somewhat tendentious list, with an odd preponderance of French movies. This isn’t merely the result of a personal affinity for an adoptive cinematic homeland but, rather, the crystallization of an idea.”
Adam Gopnik And Elizabeth Gilbert On The G.A.N. (Great American Novel)
“On this week’s Out Loud podcast, Gopnik and the writer Elizabeth Gilbert … join newyorker.com’s literary editor, Sasha Weiss, to discuss how the concept of the G.A.N. has evolved over the years and how it has influenced the aspirations of American writers.” (audio)
‘Love Is Something You Do’: Jamaica Kincaid And Lawrence Weschler On James Baldwin
The two authors – novelist/essayist Kincaid and longform journalist Weschler – join scholar Rich Blint and radio host Brian Lehrer to talk about Baldwin’s life and his ideas on love and race. (audio)
‘Mad Men’ and the Sexual Revolution, According To Gay Talese
Who better to take on this subject than the author of Thy Neighbor’s Wife?
Staging The Stories Of Bangladesh’s Shamed And Forgotten ‘War Heroines’
The birangona (Bengali for “brave woman” or “war heroine”) were ordinary Bengalis, hundreds of thousands of them, who were abducted and raped by Pakistani soldiers during the Bangladeshi War of Independence – only to be rejected by their families and communities afterward. Leesa Gazi has used their testimony to create a theatre piece now touring England.
What The Heck Are Dance Critics Looking For, Anyway? A Choreographer-Turned-Critic Explains
“Love us or hate us, we need each other.” Lauren Warnecke (who’s still a bit surprised to hear herself called a critic) understands where choreographers and dancers are coming from – and explains for them her new point of view. (She really is on your side. Most critics are.)
In Defense Of Aerial Dance
Lindsey Butcher, artistic director of Gravity & Levity: “Audiences don’t quite know what it is. Circus aficionados tend to think it waters down aerial skills and feel excluded because it is contemporary dance, but equally I’ve had dance buffs tell me I’m ‘selling out’ to circus. The truth is that aerial dance borrows from both disciplines but aims to forge its own artistic identity.”