“Fans of the Beat generation have known for years about The Novel That Kicked It All Off, but they’ve had to wait until the death of a journalist at United Press International for it to be published. The appearance in print of And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks by William S Burroughs and Jack Kerouac is a literary event…”
Tag: 11.03.08
China Enraged At Sale Of Plundered Artwork
“Chinese officials are fuming at plans to sell national treasures from an imperial palace sacked and burned by British and French forces during the second Opium War… The designer Yves Saint Laurent acquired the bronze sculptures of rat and hare heads for his immense art collection. But following his death in June they are to be auctioned alongside his other relics and artworks, in what some have called the sale of the century.”
Leftist Professors Indoctrinating Students? It’s A Myth
“An article of faith among conservative critics of American universities has been that liberal professors politically indoctrinate their students… But a handful of new studies have found such worries to be overwrought. Three sets of researchers recently concluded that professors have virtually no impact on the political views and ideology of their students.”
By Popular Demand, Jeff Koons’s Versailles Show Extended
“Mixing Jeff Koons’s outrageous artwork with the extravagence of France’s Château de Versailles appears to be a success, as organizers have extended the U.S. pop artist’s show through the new year.”
Britain’s Top Rock Festival Fails To Turn Profit
“For the first time since its inception almost four decades ago, the Glastonbury festival did not make any money this year. […] ‘Glastonbury costs £22m now, it’s a huge cost,’ [organizer Michael] Eavis recently told BBC 6 Music. ‘The infrastructure, the fencing, the roads, the water and the loos, the marquees, the management, the security and the police, it goes on and on so we do have to sell out in order to make it work.'”
The Beauty Of Divine Inspiration (And Vice Versa)
Jonathan Jones: “To me, the whole point of atheism is not worrying too much about it. Campaigning against God, making an issue of unbelief, is merely producing a mirror image of religion itself. […] [But] Religion, in other words, is mixed up with magic, or to put it another way, the kinds of religion that nurture art tend to be. Catholic idolatry begets beauty. Protestantism does not.”
Election Results Won’t Put Dissident Writers Out Of A Job
Lawrence Ferlinghetti on the election: “It has been a long idealist dream that someday society life on earth would evolve in such a way that dissident writers and intellectuals would no longer have to be dissident. There are similarities between Obama and John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but they do not point to any real political or social revolution.”
The Great Campaigns: Fonzie, Barbie, Yogi Bear …
“One of the top story lines of the 2008 campaign has been a possible surge of fake voters. But as we concern ourselves with voter fraud, let us not forget our country’s long history of fake presidential candidates.”
Rand Corp. Study Links Sex On TV With Teen Pregnancy
“[R]esearchers at the Rand Corporation say they have documented for the first time how such exposure can influence teen pregnancy rates. They found that teens exposed to the most sexual content on TV were twice as likely as teens watching less of this material to become pregnant before they reach age 20.”
Terkel Was An Artist Of Oral Histories
“I used to feel sheepish describing Studs Terkel as one of my favourite American writers, right up there with Roth and Doctorow, Updike and DeLillo. Yes, OK, his oral histories (Working, Race, Coming of Age) ranked alongside the most compelling and illuminating books produced about the American experience – but how much of this was down to the author? … How stupid I was. The genius of Studs Terkel is in his discretion.”