Okay, there have surely been worse bestsellers in the 48 years since, but probably none that were deliberately bad. Producer Sam Kim has assembled the first-hand story of the newspaper writers who pulled of one of the great “literary” (if that’s the word) hoaxes of the 20th century. (audio)
Tag: 06.08.17
Gerard Manley Hopkins’s Poetry Deserves To Be Included In The Gay Canon
Hopkins? Arguably the most fervently Catholic poet in the English language? Oh yes. “The more one reads Hopkins, the more one becomes convinced that his particular torture was to have realised the intensely carnal nature of his own spirituality.”
If Strads Lose In Blind Tests With New Violins, That’s Good News For Musicians
With Stradivarius instruments being found to sound no better than top-quality new violins in test after test, Hazel Rowland argues that violinists can be free of the tyranny of limited Strad supply and seven-figure prices. (Even so, as Rowland acknowledges, the power of the myth will persist.)
Why Alan Gilbert’s Time At The NY Philharmonic Mattered
“I reckon his tenure was at least 80 percent successful, though in a recent interview with the Times he seemed dissatisfied. “To a degree I lost my stomach to fight for things,” he said, “because I thought we were doing good work generally, and musically things were going in the direction I wanted them to.” That startlingly candid statement suggests that, in Gilbert’s mind at least, the Philharmonic registered his prodding not as an incitement to inventiveness but as a form of artistic nagging. It balked at too much reinvention.”
Best Place To Write? Surrounded By Books, Of Course
Yep, in a public space in the library: “Few things are as treasured by writers as privacy, that place where you can tune out the world and live in the alternate one on your page. I found it in one of the most public places imaginable, crowded with tour groups and class visits, a must stop in the guide books. For over twenty years I have been writing in the New York Public Library—eight novels and a ninth underway—and I can’t imagine working anywhere else.”
A Landscape Architect’s Quest To Understand The American Campsite
They’re sites, he says, where “consumerism and wilderness collide,” and where campers consistently bring more and more of the comforts of home (raising the question of what “camping” might actually mean).
Books Are Garbage
A meditation upon the titles we throw away: “I no longer go to church, since here in the Catskills we have the dump. Ours is the purest iteration of the cathedral: on a windswept rise under a ceiling of sky, the enclosing mountains the choir waiting silently to begin. Beneath the metal eaves of a soaring peaked roof, mortal leavings gather.”
How Oskar Eustis Fell In Love With Theatre
“The counterculture of the early 1970s, when I was forging my independence, was a strange and often incoherent brew of politics, self-expression, spiritual seeking, gender fluidity and art-making. It was a heady time, and while it wasn’t exactly bliss to be alive, it was a time of remarkable possibility. It was also the time when I fell in love with the avant-garde theater.”
Bestselling Authors Who Are Thriving WIthout Ever Being On The Bestseller Lists
A handful of writers who top the Kindle charts, including LJ Ross and Rachel Abbott, have defied rejections from publishers and agents to knock out seven-figure sales for their brand of crime and thriller writing. This, in a market where it only takes around 3,000 sales to top the hardback charts.
How The Oregon Shakespeare Festival Is Catching The Attention Of America’s Theatre World Elite
“Among the 600 professionals annually employed by OSF are the 100 actors who make up its repertory acting company — the largest repertory troupe in the country, ranging from new faces to actors who are 20-year veterans. (Among its alumni: Denis Arndt, nominated for a Tony this year for “Heisenberg.”) With diversity a major concern for Broadway and the theater industry at large, 61% of this year’s OSF ensemble are actors of color.”