For millennials, who came of age amidst the global financial crisis of 2008 only to graduate into today’s period of immense political and social turmoil, comfort and stability may seem like the ultimate luxuries. And they’re willing to pay good money for clothes that make them feel secure.
Tag: 10.25.17
The Stolen Medieval Manuscript That Was Returned In The Mail 50 Years Later
Here’s the story of the Luneborch Prayer Book, a beautiful 15th-century illuminated manuscript in Low German that went missing from the Peabody Library in Baltimore around 1962 – and that an unknown somebody mailed back in 2012.
Why Tyrants Seem To Love To Write Poetry
The Roman emperor Nero is the archetypal example of a despot who sees himself as a master of verse; his example was followed by no less than (among others) Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung, Pol Pot (he loved the French Symbolists), Osama Bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein. And these rulers tended to stick closely to classical forms. Benjamin Ramm explores the link between ruthlessness and versification.
The Alt-Right Is Appropriating Medieval Studies – Can Academics Stop Them?
“The resurgent white supremacist movement has been appropriating medieval (or medieval-flavored) motifs in the public eye this year, taking up the ‘Deus Vult’ slogan (or ‘God wills it,’ purported to have been chanted by medieval Crusaders) and the so-called Celtic Cross. … Should historians take responsibility for the abuse and exploitation of the past by amateurs, or even by those within their own ranks? Is scholarship doomed to be complicit in the violence done in its name?”
Film About Last Tsar’s Mistress Faced Violent Protests Before Premiere, Giggles Afterward
News of Matilda, a glossy period piece about a Polish ballerina who had an affair with Nicholas II before he was crowned (or married), was met by Russian orthodox extremists with protests, calls for a ban and even arson attacks. (Nicholas was canonized in 2000 as a martyr for the faith.) “However, most Russians – and certainly those at the screening in Moscow on Tuesday – take little or no offense.”
How To Get Good At Literary Parties
“In general, I learned, you should stay away from parties for rich people, because their purpose is donations and having a good time is secondary. Never go to a networking event. Poetry readings are either the best or the worst things. You can skip any book party because they only happen once, they end too soon, and there’s no narrative to them, especially if you’re not there.”
The Movie That Savages The International Art World
The art world is a soft target for satire, not least because the art world’s appetite for satire of itself is limitless. Artists are constantly sending up tradition and the scene through their art, only to see the cycle repeat itself as their own work becomes staid and canonical. It’s unreasonable to expect any satire of the art world to be fresh, since knowingness is the first requirement to get in the door. The Square won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this spring not because it lashes the art world in a new way, but because Ruben Östlund delivers his lashings so exquisitely.
Mark Twain Always Wanted To Be Rich. By The Time He Was 50, He Was
By the age of fifty, Mark Twain had achieved something he had dreamed of and worked for his entire life: he was rich. Raised in genteel poverty in small towns in Missouri (when Missouri was still the West), Twain as a grown man, had rubbed elbows with the greatest business tycoons of the time. And now, as head of his own publishing firm, making money for other authors, he felt like a great philanthropist. He could see himself as one of the true benefactors of the age. And it was an age he had named when he chose the title of one of his own best sellers: The Gilded Age.
Why Writing A Book Is Very Different Than Writing For TV
“Prior to my book I had, at least in some small measure, learned how to generate ideas by myself. But there was always the instant feedback of the audience to tell me where I’d misstepped, and I’ve never created a show without a co-creator, because it’s how I (and my co-creators) like to work. So the book was a new animal.”
Why Are Werewolves Almost Never Female?
“Their near absence in literature and film is explained away by various fancies: they’re sterile, an aberration, or – most galling of all – they don’t even exist. Their omission from popular culture does one thing very effectively: It prevents us, and men especially, from being confronted by hairy, ugly, uncontrollable women.”