Tag: 10.04.19

Nancy Drew Is Still Alive At 90, And Also Still 16 Years Old

How, why, and why is Nancy so hard to adapt to the screen? “Never out of print, she has appeared in more than 250 books and counting, in movies, on television shows, in CD-ROM games. She has been reinvented, in ways that fans have not always embraced, for seemingly every era.” (And she’s being reinvented now, again, for a new series.) – The New York Times

Poet, Novelist, Translator And Biographer Elaine Feinstein Has Died

Feinstein was 88. She’d published more than a dozen poetry collections and 15 novels, translated Russian poets and wrote biographies of Ted Hughes and Bessie Smith. “Feinstein often explored the relationship between being Jewish and being English — the ‘not quite at-homeness of the English Jews in England,’ as Paul Morris put it in The Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. Ever present with her was the knowledge that had her ancestors settled in Germany rather than England, her life might have been very different.” – The New York Times

A British Greeting Card Company Says It Isn’t Trying To Own A Banksy, Just Use It To Sell Cards

The Yorkshire greeting card company said it wasn’t trying to own his work, but “Banksy claimed he had been forced to open a shop in Croydon, south London, this week, as a result of the dispute. … The street artist was advised by his legal team to sell his own merchandise to avoid his trademark being used by someone else under EU law.” – BBC

College Kids Don’t Want Your Fancy ‘Reinvention,’ Just A Plain Old Library

There’s a lot of glitz going on in the college library funding race. A media room! A media room with a green screen! No, a Maker Space! And – perhaps the best idea of them all – a library escape room where students save a rare book! But actually … “Survey data and experts suggest that students generally appreciate libraries most for their simple, traditional offerings: a quiet place to study or collaborate on a group project, the ability to print research papers, and access to books.” – The Atlantic

The First Black Woman To Direct In Hollywood Says That Industry Thought She Was ‘Too Black’

Euzhan Palcy’s A Dry White Season earned Marlon Brando an Oscar nomination, but that didn’t impress Hollywood executives, she says. When she pitched other films with black leads, “‘They were very matter of fact: they’d ask: ‘Can’t the lead be white?’’ she said. ‘I was pitching a story about a black freedom fighter and they asked me if he could be white. Incredible things like that.'” – The Guardian (UK)

A Three-Year Saga Comes To A Conclusion As Jeff Koons’ Tulip Sculpture Lands In Paris

Though many in France said Koons’ sculpture “donation” – more on that in a minute – was “opportunistic and cynical,” the artist said “he hoped his tulips would become part of the local landscape and that Parisians would interact with them.” After the terrorist attacks of November 2015, the artist announced that he would give Paris a sculpture that echoed Picasso’s Bouquet of Peace. But “Koons only donated the concept for Bouquet of Tulips. The production — costing 3.5 million euros, or about $3.8 million at current exchange rates — was raised by French and American donors.” – The New York Times

What’s The Bestselling Album In Britain Right Now? Abbey Road, Obviously

The last time The Beatles’ Abbey Road was #1 on the charts, a U.S. president was laying the groundwork for his later impeachment, and Harold Wilson was Prime Minister of the UK. This return to the top “sees the album set a record – the gap of 49 years and 252 days since its initial chart-topping run ended in early 1970 is the longest gap before returning to number one.” – BBC

The Secret To A Life Well-Lived

If you’re tired of other people’s “Month of Gratitude” posts on Facebook, sorry to tell you this, but that’s the secret – gratitude. Wildly, if you want to save for retirement or something, gratitude is also the way to go: “We’ve repeatedly been able to show the close link between gratitude and self-control. In 2014, we demonstrated that people induced to feel grateful, compared with those induced to feel happiness or no emotion at all, became much more willing to wait for a larger financial reward (eg, $80 in three weeks) compared with a smaller, immediate one ($35 now).” – Aeon