The swastika is illegal in Germany, but at the Frankfurt Book Fair, they seem to be everywhere, emblazoned across the front of several bestselling books. “All the more curious then that a shipment of [Philip Roth’s latest] book was held up at German customs this week, apparently because of the swastika cover.”
Tag: 10.07.04
Revising The Brando Legacy
Marlon Brando was a brilliant actor, but his various eccentricities turned him into something of a walking caricature late in life, and his death this year did little to dispel the popular vision of him as a Hollywood joke. But now, “some of the people closest to the actor, who was known for protecting his privacy, have begun to speak publicly about his life, partly to correct the notion, fostered by tabloid stories, that he died a recluse, almost penniless and deeply in debt.”
$100 Million Buys A Lot Of Verse
Two years after a $100 million bequest fell unexpectedly into its lap, the formerly tiny and obscure Poetry Foundation has revealed just what it plans to do with the money. The group is planning “a host of projects, from a national recitation contest for high school students to ‘the biggest and baddest Web site for poetry out there.’ The projects are likely to comprise the most sweeping effort to promote poetry in the history of the United States or any other country. They may also make the Poetry Foundation a major force on the American cultural landscape.”