WAS RED HIS FAVORITE COLOR?

“Picasso as a Cold Warrior for the Evil Empire? Although the artist’s membership in the Communist Party in the late 1940s and early ’50s is well known, it has been largely ignored by scholars as a casual flirtation, with slight, if any, bearing on his art.” A new book wonders if it really was so casual. – ARTNews

THE NEW READING

“Hypertext literature is a wonderful subject for discourse, theory, and intellectual hobnobbing; but in the final analysis, there’s really not that much to it. Insofar as hypertext binds the Web together, it’s wonderful. Insofar as hypertext allows multimedia Web art to function, it’s great glue. Insofar as hypertext comprises a new literary genre, it’s about as riveting as those “write your own story” books that came out when I was a kid. – *spark-online

WAS RED HIS FAVORITE COLOR?

“Picasso as a Cold Warrior for the Evil Empire? Although the artist’s membership in the Communist Party in the late 1940s and early ’50s is well known, it has been largely ignored by scholars as a casual flirtation, with slight, if any, bearing on his art.” A new book wonders if it really was so casual. ARTnews

ENGLISH AMONG MANY

The English language has spread so far around the world that many expect it to be the dominant language of the future, the international language. But will it be? It’s not at all certain – just as one example, “people who expect English to triumph over all other languages are sometimes surprised to learn that the world today holds three times as many native speakers of Chinese as native speakers of English.” – The Atlantic 11/00