When Oscar Met Walt

The idea of Oscar Wilde meeting Walt Whitman face-to-face began as a publicity stunt for Wilde’s 1882 U.S. lecture tour. (The two were to ride together in an open carriage through the streets of Philadelphia. It was January and Whitman declined.) In fact, Wilde’s mother had read Leaves of Grass (in an unexpurgated version) to him when he was 11, and he had admired Whitman ever since, and he eventually went to visit his old hero at home. “No reporters were invited to witness the meeting between Whitman and Wilde. This was a strange choice for two dandyish men who loved self-promotion, but it was a canny one: they would each give separate interviews afterwards, and double the attention they received.”

How Finland Remade Itself As A Literary Country

Around the time of the global recession, the Finns set out as a nation to find the “next Nokia.” It was all we talked about. In a small socially democratic nation like ours, where so much is shared, we felt a common responsibility over our exports. Anything and everything could be the next Nokia, we said, so long as we figure out how to brand it. Tech start-ups were the obvious choice, but cultural products emerged as a strong contender. Could we sell even more great design? Leverage our architecture? Finnish heavy metal started to do well in Germany and the Anglo American world. Then something decisive happened in Finnish literature.

The Me Too Moment Of Photojournalism

Wow: “Photojournalists described behavior from editors and colleagues that ranged from assault to unwanted advances to comments on their appearance or bodies when they were trying to work. And now, as the #MeToo moment has prompted change across a range of industries—from Hollywood to broadcasting to the arts—photojournalists are calling for their own moment of reckoning.”

Donald Trump, The Opera?

Donald Trump is the undisputed hero of this comic opera in three acts. “Comic” does not here mean superficial or laugh-out-loud hilarious: as Rossini so superbly demonstrated in “The Barber of Seville”, comic opera combines a sophisticated analysis of human interactions with a light touch. Foreign policy offers plenty of opportunities to study human nature; at summits, each participant brings not only his or her personality but a country’s sensitivities, strengths and weaknesses to bear. Like Bartolo—the central character in “The Barber of Seville”, a buffoon-like doctor of medicine with ambitions that supersede his abilities—Mr Trump is sung by a bass.

What’s Lost When Great Private Art Collections Break Up

Noah Charney: “When the collections are dispersed, the art remains extant, but the story told by the collection dissipate. It is rather like an archaeological site — objects found within, undisturbed, tell a story based on their context. The same objects can tell their own, individual stories, but the tale of how they were gathered and arranged together can be lost if they are viewed outside of the find site, in museum vitrines.”

Musicals And Plays Adapted From Movies And Books Sell Almost Five Times As Many Tickets As Do Fully Original Scripts

According to a report from Britain’s Publishers Association using data from the industry group UK Theatre, “in 2016, adaptations took, on average, three-and-a-half times more at the box office and sold 4.8 times as many tickets as original productions. … A family musical based on a film attracts more than six times the revenue of an original show. Page-to-stage adaptations were also more successful than original productions, particularly when analysing plays.”

Wife Of Cliburn Winner Vadym Kholodenko Found Not Guilty By Reason Of Insanity Of Their Children’s Murder

“The verdict was handed down after a brief hearing in which the judge was read reports by three experts — including one retained by the prosecution — who agreed that [Sofya] Tsygankova was criminally insane when she killed her daughters [in March of 2016]. … The judge then ordered Tsygankova, now 34, committed to a state mental hospital.”

Stan Dragoti, Director Of ‘Love At First Bite’ And ‘Mr. Mom,’ Dead At 85

“A son of an Albanian immigrant, Dragoti came from the world of New York advertising. He made his Hollywood debut by writing and directing Dirty Little Billy (1972), a Western about the early years of the outlaw Billy the Kid (played by Michael J. Pollard). Dragoti then helmed Love at First Bite (1979), the great Dracula spoof starring George Hamilton as the Count, and got story credit on Mr. Mom. He directed that film, starring Michael Keaton and Teri Garr, from a screenplay by John Hughes.”

How An Isaac Asimov Sex Scene Changed My Life

Slate writer (and trans man) Evan Urquhart: “I knew [when I was 12 that] I preferred old-fashioned books by men for men (or adolescent boys), and I read these as if I were a native rather than a visitor to their world. This stood in contrast to the way I consumed girl culture: by trying to absorb and mimic the attitudes of straight girls … I was trying to play a part based on the adventures of the Sweet Valley Twins, but I could never get it exactly right. In The Robots of Dawn, the third entry in Asimov’s Robot series, I found something else.”