Will this be a boon to artists? “The experiment seeks to challenge the notion that people who receive public money need to be patrolled and punished, said Horst. The traditional criticism of basic income is that it does not incentivize people to work, and thereby damages the economy.”
Tag: 06.30.15
Vladimir Nabokov, American Novelist: How A Dispossessed Tsarist Aristocrat Became The Guy Who Got The Dead-On Americana Of “Lolita”
“Nabokov arrived on these shores, penniless and without prospects, in 1941, at the age of forty, having only begun writing in English shortly before his flight from Europe. How could a book so thoroughly – so definingly – American have arisen … from so seemingly unlikely a source?”
ISIS Is Brutal And Barbaric. But It Appeals To An Old Mythology
“Tolkien’s mythology, unlike that of ISIS, is steadfastly un-apocalyptic. But many readers, it seems, thrill to the notion of finding a king to whom they can pledge their swords without scruple or hesitation. Indeed, it is sometimes claimed that the patently adolescent politics of Tolkien’s Middle Earth represent a true and valid model for real-world humans.”
Dumb Criminals, Precocious Animals, And The Entire State Of Florida: How Oddball Items Came To Dominate The News Business
“The rise of clickbait has made weirdness ubiquitous, but it has also selected for those memes that are just weird enough to glide smoothly through social media: things that are unexpected in the most expected kind of way.”
The Curious Remaking Of David Foster Wallace
“He has become a character, an icon, and in some circles a saint. A writer who courted contradiction and paradox, who could come on as a curmudgeon and a scold, who emerged from an avant-garde tradition and never retreated into conventional realism, he has been reduced to a wisdom-dispensing sage on the one hand and shorthand for the Writer As Tortured Soul on the other.”
Can A Theatre Critic Be A Good Playwright?
“Does writing regularly about theatre make you a stronger playwright? I feel I’ve benefited from soaking up others’ work for years; I’m in a constant state of inspiration. (Sometimes I have to tell my own characters to pipe down so I can focus on the show.) My defense has always been that I was an artist—acting and directing Off-Off Broadway—before I became a critic. But there has to be some level of talent to nurture in the first place. If you have an ear for dialogue, an eye for structure, a feel for storytelling, reviewing can sharpen those gifts.”
Book Subscription Service Stops Offering Romance And Erotica Titles Because Its Readers Read Them Too Much
“Scribd appears to have slightly underestimated just how much can be consumed at their all-you-can-eat literary buffet – especially by fans of romance. Because Scribd has to pay the authors of the books they make available on their site, it is now shelling out more money than it can make back in subscriptions, thanks to the voracious appetites of romance and erotica readers.”
The 12 Most Controversial Opera Productions
Opera has never been a stranger to controversy. It’s part of its allure. Here are twelve opera productions that shocked…
Remembering Gunther Schuller
“Although he coined the expression “third stream” in the late 1950s as a suitable epithet for his own amalgam of classical and jazz forms, his music was technically complex and demanding. Hence it never secured a wide and sympathetic audience in his lifetime.”
Why Does The Work Of Great Artists Get Destroyed?
The motivation for destroying an artist’s work is often shadowy, and always riven with questions of ownership.