“‘He was embarrassed that he took them,’ Anita Thompson told The Associated Press on Thursday, noting the deep respect her husband had for Hemingway’s work. ‘He wished he hadn’t taken them. He was young, it was 1964, and he got caught up in the moment.'”
Tag: 08.18.16
Is It Rude To Walk Out Of A Performance Before It’s Finished?
“Maybe 30 years ago walking out of a performance was a big deal. These days—with the lure of social media and 5 million TV options, not to mention over-the-top ticket prices—many choose to reject what isn’t working. And why not? It’s your money and time, so why be miserable?”
How A Small-Town Bookstore Is Born
“Before there can be books, there has to be work: cleaning, sanding, painting, moving.”
There’s A New Video Game Starring A Ballet Dancer Pirouetting Through A World Inspired By Abstract Art
“There’s not a single game made with ballet dancers in the past so many years — why is that? … How many other ideas haven’t been used?”
The Internet Is Changing The Ways We Think (But Then, So Did Writing)
For “writing” read “Google” and you have much of the burden of current worries about how use of the internet may be degrading our minds. Writing itself is just as much an external prosthetic technology (“characters which are no part of themselves,” as the Egyptian king complains) as the internet is. Writing is also a tool of extended cognition. The difference is that we have had thousands of years to get used to it. The truth about the question of whether our reliance on modern electronic prostheses is better or worse for us is that it’s simply too early to tell.
Organic Cultural Spaces Versus The Top-Down Kind
“We have many spaces that are organized from the top down, that are well-renovated and secure, and that people don’t use. We call those places the hospitals of culture. What interests us is a new model of collective creativity, not just working away in our own corners but making something together.”
Scientists: Michelangelo’s “David” Is Suffering From A Balance Problem
The seed of the problem is a tiny imperfection in the statue’s design. The center of gravity in the base doesn’t align with the center of gravity in the figure itself; when the base is level, in other words, the David’s body is slightly off-balance. There is, as the article nicely puts it, “an eccentricity of the loads.”
The Artist Behind The Naked Trump Statues (And How He Did It)
“Monroe was chosen to create the likeness of the “monstrous” presidential candidate because of his experience designing monsters for horror movies and haunted houses, including serving as the director for Eli Roth’s now defunct “Goretorium” in Las Vegas.”
Trolls Are Killing Our Lives Online
“Internet trolls have a manifesto of sorts, which states they are doing it for the “lulz,” or laughs. What trolls do for the lulz ranges from clever pranks to harassment to violent threats. There’s also doxxing–publishing personal data, such as Social Security numbers and bank accounts–and swatting, calling in an emergency to a victim’s house so the SWAT team busts in. When victims do not experience lulz, trolls tell them they have no sense of humor. Trolls are turning social media and comment boards into a giant locker room in a teen movie, with towel-snapping racial epithets and misogyny.”
‘The Myth Of Cultural Authenticity, One Of The More Bizarre Delusions Of Contemporary Life’
C.B. George: “It is a mindset that can mock a rapper who fabricates a criminal background and idolize the authenticity of a convicted felon. Seriously? Me, if I must choose between someone who pretends to have shot people and someone who’s shot people, I go for the fantasist every time. It is a mindset that holds dear an essentialist view of “indigenous culture” even as it disdains the same essentialism in the nationalist intolerance currently blighting the US and much of Europe.”