“Crisscrossing the country for 191 days, she gave 74 lectures in 37 cities in 23 states. The visit, highly publicized at the time, is little-known now, even though, as [scholar Wanda] Corn asserts, ‘It is the trip that creates her solid, American celebrity’.”
Tag: 10.14.11
Being Salman Rushdie
“A few years ago, someone brought a smile to Rushdie’s lips. What’s worse, he asked him: living in hiding for years with a death sentence hanging over you, or being asked thousands of times what it’s like to live with a death sentence hanging over you? ‘It’s pretty close,’ the writer replied ironically.”
When Edward Watson Lost His Bicep
“When it went, it was like a relief because there was no pain for the first time in eight months. Then I looked down and all of this was … there,” recounted the Royal Ballet principal as he traced the outline of a bicep muscle at his elbow joint.
The Secret To Writing Decent Fiction
“It’s a daunting prospect to sit down with the intention of writing a masterpiece. If it has any chance of being realised that ambition is best broken down into achievable increments, such as I will sit here for two hours, or 500 words or whatever”
Mitsuko Uchida’s Cross-Cultural Life
“I was born in Japan, and there’s a Japanese bit of me that I wouldn’t notice: I made a conscious decision not to lose my parents’ language. Musically I flourished when I was speaking German – that was my real musical education – but the people I loved and who influenced me more than my teachers came through my third language, which is English.”
Hübbe Signs On for Five More Years at Royal Danish Ballet
“Nikolaj Hübbe, 43, the popular former principal dancer at the New York City Ballet, has extended his term as artistic director at the Royal Danish Ballet for another five years, the company said on Friday.”
British Library Criticized For Amazon.com Link
“The British Library has come under fire from booksellers for including a link to online giant Amazon.co.uk on entries in its public online catalogue.”
How The Brain Works (Or Doesn’t)
“What’s the right way to think about the brain? Like a piece of software stuck in permanent beta, it has its share of bugs, but its plasticity allows for frequent updates. And it somehow enables cognitive feats so remarkable they often go unnoticed. Beginning to understand its own limitations is only one of them.”
From A Jazz Bar To Marathons, Novelist Haruki Murakami Has Lived With Courage – And Discipline
Haruki Murakami, author of Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood and After the Quake, didn’t set out to be who he is. “Elements of Murakami’s background are mysterious, even to him. He can’t say why he decided to become a writer. It merely struck him one day, out of the blue, while watching a baseball game.”
Embrace The Cloud, Let Go Of Control – And Create A Better World?
If only Congress ran like cloud computing – a system whose architecture works by decentralization. “Think about it: What better example is there in the entire world today of a system whereby a single point of failure derails the entire production process and jeopardizes the integrity of the system at large, than the United States Congress?”