“The older you get the more difficult it is to learn to speak French like a Parisian. But no one knows exactly what the cutoff point is – at what age it becomes harder, for instance, to pick up noun-verb agreements in a new language. In one of the largest linguistics studies ever conducted,” researchers concluded that the cutoff is later than many experts thought.
Tag: 05.04.18
What Makes A Great Magazine Editor
One striking feature in a number of editorships is the manner in which editorial practice shifts towards a more charismatic and singular mode over time. This is certainly a common feature for three of the most successful literary editors of the twentieth century, each of whom edited a long-running publication that was firmly embedded in a parent institution.
Why Has French Intellectualism Declined? And Why Is Its Reputation Still Intact?
While in the new millennium the quality of French intellectual life has plummeted, its reputation remains. Shlomo Sand bracingly compares media-friendly intellectuals such as Houellebecq, Éric Zemmour and Alain Finkielkraut to Nazi-collaborating writers such as Robert Brasillach and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. Like such past figures, Sand argues, they cling to a France that is “totally imaginary” and yearn for it to be purified of the Other. In 1940 that meant Jews, in 2018 Islam.
Doing Sportscaster-Style Commentary On A Classical Music Competition (Yes, It Can Work)
Andrew Mellor writes about the commentary he did for the live video stream of this year’s Malko Competition for Young Conductors. “Much like a pundit pitting the poor defensive track record of West Ham against the unstoppable firepower of Manchester City, I tried to ascertain what dangers the prescribed works would pose for each contestant, and tapped the expertise of other journalists in so doing. What’s the worst thing that can happen in the slow movement from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony?”
Why A Nobel Prize For Literature Is A Bad Idea Anyway…
“Literature is not tennis or football, where international competition makes sense. It is intimately tied to the language and culture from which it emerges. Literary style distinguishes itself by its distance from the other styles that surround it, implying a community of readers with a shared knowledge of other literary works, of standard language usage and cultural context. What sense does it make for a group from one culture — be it Swedish, American, Nigerian or Japanese — to seek to compare a Bolivian poet with a Korean novelist, an American singer-songwriter with a Russian playwright, and so on? Why would we even want them to do that?”
Art Dealers Could Be Governed By Financial Regulators Under Proposed US Law
“US lawmakers are working on legislation that would subject the country’s art dealers to financial regulation by the government and which could prove challenging for galleries, an art-law firm warned its clients this week. New York-based Pearlstein McCullough & Lederman said that legislation is likely to be introduced in Congress during the week of 14 May, adding dealers of fine art and antiquities to the list of regulated financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act.”
Hit BBC Gangster Series To Be Adapted For – Ballet?
While the creator of Peaky Blinders, a drama about a criminal family in 1920s Birmingham, was making an announcement about plans for future seasons, he revealed that he is in talks with Rambert, Britain’s oldest dance company, for a ballet version of the property.
How The United States Is Turning Japanese
It’s not just sushi and ramen and anime and Marie Kondo. “‘Japan is the global imagination’s default setting for the future,’ as the author William Gibson wrote in 2001. ‘The Japanese seem to the rest of us to live several measurable clicks down the time line.’ … But what Gibson wrote about products was just as true about other, less visible trends in Japanese society: economic stagnation; a plunging fertility rate; a dramatic postponement of the ‘normal’ milestones of adulthood, such as getting married or simply moving out of the family home; a creeping sense of ambivalence about what the future might hold. Seventeen years later, America has finally caught up.”
Wanda Wilkomirska, Violinist Who Opposed Communist Rule In Poland, Has Died At 89
She wasn’t just a famed concert violinist and teacher, but a freedom fighter who took a stand. “After martial law was declared in Poland in late 1981, she announced while on a concert tour of the West that she would not return to the country. She stayed away for almost a decade.”
Maybe Don’t Stress: Amazon Bookstores Can’t Actually Compete With Indies
“With all its gizmotopian technosyncrasies, it cannot actually compete with your neighborhood shop. It stocks too few books, its approach is too robotically data-driven, its employees are not remarkably knowledgeable about books, it is selling toys and e-gadgets as much as (or more than) books, it is not a cozy place to browse or to discover something you did not already know about.” Yes, fine – but Amazon is also still a huge threat to independent bookstores and to publishing itself.