Tag: 06.29.17

Margaret Atwood Addresses The ‘Make Margaret Atwood Fiction Again’ Thing In An Interview With Junot Diaz

Also, Diaz gives Atwood the idea to get Drake to cameo in Season 2 of Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu. But on an unfunny note, she says, “The real question is, if the United States were going to have a totalitarianism, what kind of totalitarianism would it be? We’ve had all kinds in the world, including atheist ones. But if the U.S. were ever going to go down that path, what would be the device under which they would do it?”

The Architecture Of Stages: A History That’s More Like A Spiral Than An Arrow

Joshua Dachs: “What at first looks like evolution – from campfires to hillsides to amphitheatres to courtyards to playhouses and onward into the future – is really the recapitulation of another kind of trajectory, from improvisation to formalization. As each new theatrical practice is improvised by a new culture or by restless, visionary (or hungry) artists using the materials at hand, its successes are repeated; standardized practices emerge, traditions and expectations are established.”

How Teaching Machines To Play Chess Cracked The Code To Artificial Intelligence

“The history of computer chess is the history of artificial intelligence. After their disappointments in trying to reverse-engineer the brain, computer scientists narrowed their sights. Abandoning their pursuit of human-like intelligence, they began to concentrate on accomplishing sophisticated, but limited, analytical tasks by capitalizing on the inhuman speed of the modern computer’s calculations. This less ambitious but more pragmatic approach has paid off in areas ranging from medical diagnosis to self-driving cars. Computers are replicating the results of human thought without replicating thought itself.”

Tchaikovsky Hated His ‘1812 Overture’ (Good Thing He Didn’t Have To Go To Every Outdoor Summer Symphony Ever)

In the U.S., it gets played on the Fourth of July a lot. Wait, what? “We think of the 1812 Overture as this very American piece and we play it on the Fourth of July for whatever reason, which is just nutso for so many reasons. Last year, I watched a very grown man cry to this piece of music and I was like, ‘Are you sure?” Do you even know what it’s about? Have you just been assuming the ‘1812 Overture’ is about the American War of 1812. Guess what? It’s not!!'”

The Deep Beauty Of Reading About Cooking

And what a future writer learned about writing: “Words can be used to make an idea more precise, or more vague, to make something clear or to blur its edges. Some writers are good at imagining people who don’t live a life exactly like their own, and others seem incapable.”

Literary Icon Ngugi Wa Thiong’o Joins Boycott Of Swedish Book Festival Over Extreme Right-Wing Newspaper

“The event, to be held from 28 September to 1 October, is Scandinavia’s largest book fair and draws around 100,000 visitors each year. On 21 April, more than 200 Swedish authors signed an article in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper saying they would boycott the book fair if Nya Tider is represented.” Now the Kenyan icon, tipped every year for the Nobel, has joined the boycott, withdrawing his attendance.

The Artist Who Created Eloise Reveals His Muses

The illustrator of Eloise, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and so many more was inspired partly by his time in the Navy. “Perhaps his most important education, though, occurred in movie palaces and at the lushly outfitted live entertainments that used to be Broadway staples. Vitrines at the library contain collaged homages to a chorus line of showbiz muses like Liliane Montevecchi (‘the most remarkable person,’ said Mr. Knight, a connoisseur of the appreciative adjective), Ann Miller (‘like a steam engine’) and Dame Edna (‘extraordinary’).”