“Lisa McInerney, who started her career as a writer with a blog about life on a council estate in the ‘Arse End of Ireland’, has won the Baileys women’s prize for fiction with her debut novel” – The Glorious Heresies – “beating Man Booker winner Anne Enright [The Gathering] and bestseller Hanya Yanagihara [A Little Life] to the £30,000 award.”
Tag: 06.08.16
Misty Copeland’s Not The Only Ballerina Fighting The Good Fight For Diversity
“It wasn’t until later in her ballet career that Lia Cirio began to suspect that people had their doubts that a half-Filipino ballerina could be a Clara or Sleeping Beauty. While the Boston Ballet employs 69 dancers of 20 different nationalities, she still sees the need to prove herself on stage with each performance.”
“Cultural Catastrophe”: A Paris Museum That Flooded
Closed for the past four years due to ongoing renovations, the Musée Girodet was set to reopen next year but will have to push back that date due to the flood, which Montargis Mayor Jean-Pierre Door described as a “cultural catastrophe.” The museum’s building sits at the center of a narrow strip of land bordered by the Loing river and a canal, but during the renovations most of its collection has been stored off-site, even closer to the water, in the underground vault of a former bank.
How The Hawaiian Language Is Coming Back From Near-Death
“[There’s now a network of] public language-immersion schools where subjects are taught in Hawaiian until about fifth grade, at which point English is gradually introduced. Designed to revive the fading language, these institutions began spreading across the state three decades ago, resulting in what many consider the most successful revival of an indigenous language in North America.”
Artist Tries To Burn Down HQ Of Russia’s Secret Service And Says It’s “Art”
Petr Pavlensky told the crowd that they are living in a society controlled through “uninterrupted terror”, that surveillance in Russia is on the rise but that people’s own fear is making them prisoners. That was the stark message the artist wanted to send when he conceived “Threat” and selected the headquarters of Russia’s powerful security service, the FSB, as his canvas – or target.
Byron’s Friends Destroyed His Memoir. What Were They Hiding?
“Byron’s memoirs – which might have finally provided the “truth” about his life – were destroyed soon after his death. The story goes that three of his closest friends (his publisher, John Murray; his fellow celebrity poet, Thomas Moore; and his companion since his Cambridge days, John Cam Hobhouse), together with lawyers representing Byron’s half-sister and his widow, decided that the manuscript was so scandalous, so unsuitable for public consumption, that it would ruin Byron’s reputation forever… What was the damning secret his friends needed to protect? Domestic abuse? Sodomy? Incest? Probably all three, we imagine.”
How Charity Auctions Take Advantage Of Artists
The seismographic range of institutions, causes, and charities staging sales creates a constant barrage for artists. “It’s a side business keeping up with all the auctions,” said Simmons, who gave away 16 works last year. “It takes an amazing amount of, for lack of a better word, administrative time. It’s very hard to keep it all going.” Artist Marilyn Minter said she receives requests for donations every week. Rob Pruitt fields about 20 solicitations a year.
How Shakespeare Grappled With The Issues And Why He Still Resonates
Even though our values have evolved in crucial areas beyond those of Shakespeare’s era, we can talk back to the plays because they talk back to themselves. Whether it’s sexism in “The Taming of the Shrew,” racism in “Othello,” anti-Semitism in “The Merchant of Venice” or colonialism in “The Tempest,” it is hard to find a point of view that Shakespeare hasn’t already anticipated and embodied.
You Can’t Have Free Will Without Regret
“This is the very essence of regret – we can only regret things we think we have control over. If we had no choice, no agency, if we were but tossed about on the tides of fate, there’d be nothing to regret. And so, regret ends up being the emotional price we pay for free will.”
The (Real) Abuse And (Real) Psychopath Onstage (And No One Said Anything)
The reason Killer Joe felt so vicious and so real was because it was. All of it: the choking, the bruises, the deep-throating of a chicken leg, the body slam into the refrigerator, Cox’s groping of Wellin through her dress as Joe attempts to seduce Dottie, Cox’s semi-erection at the beginning of Act II after Joe succeeds. “It was real,” says Darcy McGill, the costume designer, “because there was a psychopath onstage.”