The Shahnameh, newly translated into English as The Epic of the Persian Kings, has received a lavish new printing with hundreds of illustrations digitally assembled from the famous miniature paintings that adorned medieval Iranian and Middle Eastern manuscripts.
Tag: 08.25.13
Getting A Few Things Straight About Thomas Pynchon
“First of all, it’s pronounced ‘Pynch-ON.’ Second, the great and bewildering and, yes, very private novelist is not exactly a recluse.” Boris Kachka didn’t get to talk to Pynchon himself, but he has managed to put together a reasonable portrait of the man.
Same-Sex Couples Compete In World Tango Championships For First Time
“Enthusiastic cheers and massive applause rang out in a Buenos Aires exhibition hall for Juan Pablo Ramirez and Daniel Arroyo, as they danced to a 1940s classic. … The crowds in this traditionally conservative bastion of machismo culture, surprisingly, seem to embrace the change.”
When Jerusalem Drives People Insane
A look at three types of the “Jerusalem syndrome” which occasionally strikes certain visitors to the city.
Beethoven For The Masses
“In its 89-year history, fewer than 4,250 students have attended the school. So what on earth is this new Curtis course with an enrollment of 25,000 and growing?”
When Nerd Culture Became Cool Culture
“Like never before, nerd culture has been co-opted by cool culture. This isn’t your weird Uncle Gerry’s Comic Con anymore, geeks.”
The Chinese Architect Who Is Bringing Nature Back Into Tall Buildings
Ma Yansong “says that the ‘machine age’ drive to build grid-shaped cities filled with cubic buildings that race each other into the sky — first in the West, and now in China — alienates people from the spirits of nature and from each other. Silo-like skyscrapers, he says, should give way to structures that emulate the forces and forms of nature — clouds, mountains, waves — in cities of the future.”
The Drones That Are Changing The Face Of Archaeology
“Small drones have been helping a growing number of researchers produce three-dimensional models of Peruvian sites instead of the usual flat maps – and in days and weeks instead of months and years.”
Why Are American Universities Abandoning The Classics?
“For American college students, 1990 appears to be a historical cliff beyond which it is rumored some books were once written, though no one is quite sure what. Why have US colleges decided that the best way to introduce their students to higher learning is through comic books, lite lit, and memoirs?”
Global Warming Data Expressed As A Song
“University of Minnesota undergraduate Daniel Crawford converted more than a century of global temperature data to create A Song of Our Warming Planet.”