It’s the insiders—the poets, the tenured—who like to “problematize” poetry and wield their whatabouts. The “prose poem” is one of the most abiding whatabouts. It remains an outlier, a problem. – The Walrus
Tag: 09.17.19
State Of Illinois Wants To Sell/Demolish One Of Chicago’s Best Post-Modernist Buildings
“In 32 years of annual “most endangered” designations from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Thompson Center is the youngest building ever to make the list. It’s also a prominent presence on the endangered lists of local activist groups Preservation Chicago and Landmarks Illinois (which, looking at the environmental impact, estimates that demolishing the center would create 145 million pounds of waste).” – Chicago Reader
When Copy Editors Backstopped The News Room
“It makes me crazy reading sloppy, typo-strewn copy. Ditto for readers, as has been made clear by the hundreds of emails I receive complaining about errors and inexcusable typos. The takeaway is that we just don’t care enough to give every story a good shake.” – Toronto Star
The Oldest Spinning Top Is About 5,500 Years Old [VIDEO]
Apparently, we can’t stop being fascinated with the momentary feel that perpetual motion could happen, if only we spun perfectly. – Aeon
Invent A Better Book? Maybe We Don’t Need To
“In hindsight, we can see how rarely one technology supersedes another: the rise of the podcast makes clear that video didn’t doom audio any more than radio ended reading. Yet in 1913, a journalist interviewing Thomas Edison on the future of motion pictures recounted the inventor declaring confidently that “books … will soon be obsolete in the public schools.” – The Paris Review
The Exhibition That Made, And Almost Wrecked, Francis Bacon’s Career
His 1970 solo show at the Grand Palais in Paris meant to establish Bacon in the very highest echelons of living painters — even, he hoped, as a peer to Picasso. Then his erstwhile lover, the subject of many of the works on display, killed himself in their hotel room just before the show’s opening. – The Guardian
Betty Corwin, Who Saved Broadway Performances For Posterity, Dead At 98
The Theater on Film and Tape Archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts “was the charismatic Ms. Corwin’s baby. She proposed it to the library in 1969 and, told that she could pursue it as a volunteer, coaxed it into being through a feat of extraordinary diplomacy, persuading each theatrical union that recordings would neither lead to piracy nor harm the box office.” – The New York Times
Audiences Prefer Actors With Disabilities To Play Characters With Disabilities: Study
“Findings from the Ruderman Family Foundation’s just released effort, Disability Inclusion in Movies and Television, show that … 55% would like to see characters with disabilities portrayed authentically. … [The study also found that] viewers rank ‘diversity’ in the top five most valuable characteristics for content when disability is included in the definition.” – Los Angeles Times
Artist Plants A Forest Inside A Soccer Stadium. Cue Backlash
“I have been working on this idea for 30 years, and the fact that it landed right on the dot amid this whole climate discussion feels a bit eerie to me,” he says. “ […] I am producing a radical image through relatively simple means: by taking something and setting it in a new context, it challenges people’s perception. I want them to reflect on how they deal with nature.” – Hyperallergic
Fire At NYC’s Cathedral Of St. John The Devine
Oil paintings and an 18th-century icon were destroyed and other artworks damaged. And the plumes of smoke that rose up through heating vents in the floor into the cathedral’s vast interior left soot everywhere. – The New York Times