Persians Have A Breakthrough In American Pop Culture

Novelist Porochista Khakpour: “If pop culture is a measure of cultural visibility, then Iranian Americans have been invisible for decades. Of course, there was Iran itself, hardly invisible. But as a teenager, I knew my reality, one far from hostage crises and contra trials, was never going to make it pop culturally; in fact, I would have bet my little hyphenated life against the very moment of pop cultural breakthrough we’re finally reaching now.”

America’s First Japanese Tour Group

150 years ago, “a Japanese delegation sailed to America to present the recently signed U.S.-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce to President Buchanan. They arrived in San Francisco on March 29, 1860, for a three-month tour that ended with two weeks in New York. That visit is the focus of ‘Samurai in New York,’ a new show at the Museum of the City of New York.”

Want To Buy Your Way Into The Top Of New York Society? Give To The Arts

Lincoln Center’s president points out: “Thousands of New Yorkers will go by the Koch Theater, whereas the number of people who actually go into a wing of a hospital is relatively small, and passersby don’t see it. Universities are not tourist attractions; hospitals aren’t. The arts are a tourist attraction.” Quips another observer: “What’s sexier? An oncologist or a ballerina?”

Harper Lee Actually Speaks To Journalist

Friends of the reclusive author of To Kill a Mockingbird agreed to introduce her to a London reporter – on condition that no mention whatsoever be made of ‘The Book.” The conversation was very brief, and mostly about feeding ducks, but Lee’s Alabama neighbors did provide some insight into her mindset and the reasons for her determined silence.

Where Are Today’s Protest Songs?

“Protest songs — at least the kind that galvanized thousands at a time during the labour struggles of the 1920s and ’30s, anti-nuclear and civil rights marches in the 1950s, the anti-Vietnam war rallies in the 1960s and the economic upheavals in Britain during the Thatcher years — seem to have disappeared from the landscape.”

Why Libraries Matter

“Just standing in the library made me remember how no other literary experience makes you feel so acutely you are part of a vast community of book-lovers, self-improvers, unfettered imaginations, armchair travellers and generally like-minded souls. Like countless others, I am the adult libraries built.”