“The theme is not a gentle salve for the American underslept; it is several swimming pools of Red Bull, delivered via helicopter drop, to a stadium full of management consultants. … Now Monday Night Football is played on Thursday nights, Meet the Press airs every weekday, and Morning Edition blasts you with frenetic electronica. No wonder people are pissed.” – The Atlantic
Tag: 05.11.19
A New Zealand Museum Invests Millions To Merge Art, Science, And Memory
Wow: “A 700-year-old fractured moa egg sits at the heart of the exhibition, cocooned in a 70-square-metre, four-metre-high bird’s nest woven from recycled materials. Inside, the songs of native birds extinct and threatened surround you, some now calling from the grave.” – The Guardian (UK)
Asking A University Press To Make A Profit Is Asinine, And Anti-Intellectual
Yes, Stanford, we’re talking about you, but not only you. Even a libertarian agrees: “What is the point of a university press? Its main task, quite simply, is to publish works that expand our knowledge. Such books do not necessarily attract a large readership.” – The Atlantic
Peggy Lipton, Star Of ‘The Mod Squad’ And ‘Twin Peaks,’ Has Died At 72
Lipton, also a former model and the mother of actresses Rashida and Kidada Jones, earned a Golden Globe for her role on The Mod Squad, “one of pop culture’s first efforts to reckon seriously with the counterculture … the series, which costarred Michael Cole and Clarence Williams III, dealt with issues such as domestic violence, abortion, police brutality, the Vietnam War and drugs.” – Los Angeles Times
Australian Art In Chains At The Venice Biennale
Australian Aboriginal artist Richard Bell – a member of the Kamilaroi, Kooma, Jiman and Gurang Gurang communities – has commissioned “a sculptural replica of Australia’s official Biennale pavilion to be driven around the canal city on a motorised barge, laden with heavy ‘keep out’ chains, and with symbolism.” – The Guardian (UK)
Las Vegas Has Become A Literary Hub
Yes, Las Vegas: “The Strip is still, and ever shall be, as Joan Didion described it, ‘bizarre and beautiful in its venality and in its devotion to immediate gratification.’ But a recent infusion of money, people and The Believer, a literary magazine, have kindled an already present bookish community into a steadier flame.” – The New York Times
As Penguin Random House Buys A Big Spanish Publisher, Its True Rivals Are The Big Three
Penguin Random House acquired Salamandra on May 3, and some see it as the start of a large rivalry with multimedia firm and publisher Grupo Planeta – but the real rivals to both publishing companies are Amazon, Apple, and Google. – El Pais (Spain)
How To Listen To Music That You’re Pretty Sure Is By A Predator
Ann Powers re-listens to all of Michael Jackson’s work in the wake of Leaving Neverland. “If culture builds itself through revelations, explorations, secrets and lies, any response that doesn’t claim the contradictions gets it wrong.” – NPR
At The Venice Biennale, Lithuania Wins The Top Prize
Three Lithuanian artists won the prize for an opera performance piece “on an artificial beach, in which swimsuited performers break from sunbathing to sing warnings of ecological disaster.” – The New York Times
Alvin Sargent, Oscar-Winning Screenwriter Of ‘Julia’ And ‘Ordinary People,’ Has Died At 92
Sargent was the master of the adapted screenplay. “One of Hollywood’s most versatile writers, Mr. Sargent, who adapted screenplays from books and stories, wrote or collaborated on scores of television and film scripts over six decades: comedies, dramas, westerns, romances, even Spider-Man adventures.” (As a matter of fact, many outlets headlined his obit as “Spider-Man Writer.”) – The New York Times