Geraldine McCaughrean was named winner on Monday of this year’s CILIP Carnegie medal for her historical adventure novel Where the World Ends, 30 years after she first took the prize, the UK’s most esteemed children’s literature award. She used her winner’s speech to attack publishers’ fixation on accessible language, which she called “a euphemism for something desperate”.
Tag: 06.18.18
The ‘Trolley Problem’, The Famous Philosophy Thought Experiment, May Be Bogus
Daniel Engber: “Scientists use versions of the kill-one-to-save-five hypothetical, reworded and reframed for added nuance, as a standard way to probe the workings of the moral mind. … But if the answers to those questions don’t connect to real behavior” – and some new research indicates that they don’t – “then where, exactly, have these trolley problems taken us?”
The Arts Help Athens Bounce Back From Greece’s Financial Crisis
“[The city has] endure[d] crisis and chaos and economic collapse, and yet emerge[d] from the wreckage as one of the continent’s most vibrant and significant cultural capitals, more popular than ever as a tourist destination. (Last year Athens welcomed a record 5 million visitors, double the 2012 figure.) … In so many ways, Athens feels more alive, more culturally prolific, than ever, and it’s hard to understand how this could have happened in the midst of the worst economic catastrophe in the history of the European Union.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 06.18.18
Propwatch: the blender in Julie
The talk around us was all about the dishwashers. ‘Look, there’s two of them,’ murmured the woman in front of us. ‘Three dishwashers,’ gasped a guy in the row behind. By the end, … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2018-06-18
Visconti’s Four-Hour Ludwig — A Momentous Wagnerian Film
The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s current Luchino Visconti retrospective climaxes with more than a week of screenings (June 16 and 22-28) featuring the restored, four-hour version of Ludwig (1973) — a rare opportunity to properly encounter a magnificent Wagnerian film. … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered Question Published 2018-06-16
Monday Surprise: Seeing Bix
For many aficionados of Bix Beiderbecke the surprise is not that there is so little film of the great cornetist, but that there is any. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-06-18
Have We Turned To Comedy To Our Own Detriment?
He’s concerned, Ken Jennings is, about how something he loves — comedy — has transformed the way we live now. These days, he says, we collectively react to every stimulus through a lens of humor. In his view, the comedic “take” has become reflexive, unthinking and often, especially when abetted by social media, glib.
How Pixar’s “The Incredibles II” Smashed Box Office Records This Weekend
Disney–Pixar’s “Incredibles 2” shattered box office expectations with its $180 million domestic debut — the eighth-best opening weekend of all time in North America and the biggest ever launch for an animated film. Overseas, it picked up an additional $51.5 million for a global start of $231.5 million.
Study Shows Big Gender Disparity In American Books Coverage
The highly anticipated “VIDA Count,” released Monday, has The New Yorker, The Nation and The Atlantic among those devoting less than 40 percent of their book coverage to women in 2017. Only two of 15 publications analyzed in the main VIDA count gave women 50 percent or more — Poetry magazine and Granta. Those between 40 percent and 49 percent include The New York Times Book Review and the Paris Review, from which editor Lorin Stein resigned last December amid allegations of sexual harassment.
Christo Takes Over A Lake In London
The sculpture’s footprint covers 1% of the artificial lake’s surface and rises 20 metres above the water. The sides of the barrels are painted red, with a white stripe circling their circumference, giving the side-view of the sculpture the appearance of relentless cartoon brickwork. The circular barrels’ ends are variously blue, a different red or a dusky mauve. Their arrangement seems a kind of random pixilation, though the order is meticulously copied from the artist’s working drawings.
Seattle Symphony Names A New CEO
Krishna Thiagarajan is currently Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chief Executive. Thiagarajan has previously held executive positions in the U.S. with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Symphony in C. He will begin his new post on September 1, 2018.
The Point Of Getting An Arts Degree Isn’t Making Money, But Enriching Lives
Lyn Gardner is not having it: “Rather than being scandalised by the fact that those who are most creative – and the most creative thinkers – are likely to be paid less, the IFS draws the conclusion that students should consider later-life earnings when picking their subjects at GCSE and A level. This will allow them to access degree courses with a greater financial return. I guess that’s what happens when you turn higher education into a market-place and sell the old canard that the purpose of a degree is to boost earnings.”