“In her essay collection Endangered Pleasures: In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences (1995), Ms. Holland put forward a hedonist’s credo. ‘Joy has been leaking out of our life,’ she wrote.”
Tag: 09.14.10
David Foster Wallace’s Final Novel Gets Release Date
The Pale King “is set in ‘an IRS tax-return-processing center in Illinois in the mid-1980s,’ and tells the story of ‘a crew of entry-level processors and their attempts to do their job in the face of soul-crushing tedium’.” The release date? April 15, of course.
Selling Essays Like iTunes Songs
“If a song on iTunes sells for 99 cents, how about a literary essay? On Tuesday, Scribner began publishing 69 essays by Chuck Klosterman, the pop culture and sports writer, available individually from retailers like Amazon, Apple and BN.com for 99 cents each.”
NY State Ends Injunction Against Deaccessioning
“In a surprise development in the battle over whether museums should be allowed to sell art to cover operating costs, the New York State Board of Regents on Tuesday approved the expiration of emergency regulations regarding such ‘deaccessioning’ on Oct. 8.”
Thailand’s Hot New Cinéaste Confounds His Countrymen
Apichatpong Weerasethakul “stunned the movie world in May by winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes for his latest film, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. … [Yet he’s] a polarizing figure at home. Not so much for his films, which until recently were barely known among the general public, but for his championing of antigovernment protesters and his critiques of the political establishment.”
William Blake’s ‘Unsettling Art’
Robert Pinsky: “‘Blake’s poetry has the unpleasantness of great poetry,’ says T.S. Eliot (who has a way of parodying himself even while making wise observations). … In particular, the two poems both titled ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ offer eloquent examples of Blake’s unsettling art.”
Irish Hand Dancing on YouTube
“Dancers Suzanne Cleary and Peter Harding have appeared with Riverdance and other Irish-style dance productions in venues around the world. For their latest project, however, … a video titled ‘We No Speak Americano,’ the dancers perform a comic number entirely with their hands and arms.”
Uh Oh. Now The Robots Can Lie To Us?
“Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed algorithms that let robots determine whether they are in a situation where they should deceive other robots or humans.”
The Bill Evans Factor
“Thirty years after his death on Sept. 15, 1980, Evans is omnipresent in a range of pianists that includes Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Fred Hersch, Jessica Williams, Billy Childs, Bill Mays, Denny Zeitlin, Larry Willis and–this is not a stretch–hundreds of others.”
A First: More Women Than Men Get Doctoral Degrees
“The majority for women in doctoral degrees is slight — 50.4 percent. But the shift has been steady and significant. As recently as 2000, women were earning only 44 percent of doctoral degrees. In master’s degrees, where women have already accounted for a majority of degrees, their share now stands at 60 percent.”