In literature, some of the most celebrated writers were once considered too strange, too limited or just too boring. Several publishers turned down Toni Morrison’s first novel, “The Bluest Eye,” and she was chastised for years by white critics for focusing too much on black characters. – Washington Post (AP)
Tag: 10.15.19
Canadian Choir Performs On Both Sides Of US/Mexico Border
“With a barbed wire fence and border patrol dividing two groups of drop-in singers, one located on the beach at Border Field State Park in San Diego, Calif., and the other just metres away in the border town of Tijuana, Mexico, the popular choral group performed a rendition of With A Little Help From My Friends by The Beatles. About 300 people took part on the U.S. side and 500 across the divide in Tijuana.” – CBC
Netflix Heads To Frankfurt Book Fair On Book-Buying Spree
“It’s about finding the most specific, authentic, local stories and bringing those to a global platform in a way that hasn’t ever been done before. Those ideas can come from books, blogs, podcasts, comics, or any range of creative expression.” – Deadline
Australian Booksellers Take Ronan Farrow Book Off Shelves After Pressure From National Enquirer Parent Company
Dylan Howard, who remains a top executive at the Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., has hired several high-powered law firms on three continents, including the Sydney-based McLachlan Thorpe Partners, to suppress Farrow’s book, which chronicles the extraordinary lengths the Australian tabloid muckraker had gone to help his friend, criminally charged alleged serial rapist Harvey Weinstein. – The Daily Beast
How To Pick The Best Seat In The House To Hear An Orchestra
The idea of a “best seat” is subjective and depends on how important a good sightline is to you and what sort of instrumental blend you enjoy. While describing sound in terms of “warmth” and “clarity” and “resonance” may seem subjective, these are in fact quantifiable acoustic terms. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Mission Creep??!!
A colleague recently shared that when they advocate for community engagement in their organization they get pushback about “mission creep.” Mission creep??!! If connecting the arts with communities is not an arts organization’s mission, what is it?! – Doug Borwick
The twenty-five record albums that changed my life (1)
Throughout the coming month, I’ll write about one of these albums every weekday in the order in which I first heard them, starting in 1968 with the first record I ever bought with my own money. – Terry Teachout
Why Two Booker Prize Winners This Year? Perhaps Some Lessons
The danger is that the Booker effect that propelled last year’s “difficult” winner, the brilliant Milkman, to a wider readership will be dissipated. Perhaps it’s best understood as a reminder of how impossible it is, in the end, for the subjective process of weighing one novel against another to come to an objective conclusion. – The Guardian
Who Stole Ancient Bible Fragments And Sold Them To Hobby Lobby?
This week investigators accused professor Dirk Obbink, one of the most celebrated classics professors in the world, a Nebraska native and MacArthur “genius grant” recipient who had long directed — and allegedly looted — Oxford’s Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project, a collection of centuries-old literature recovered from an ancient Egyptian garbage dump in 1896. – Washington Post