“A court in Singapore today sentenced the British author Alan Shadrake to six weeks in prison after he was earlier found guilty of contempt over claims in his book about city-state’s application of the death penalty. Shadrake, 76, was also fined US$15,400 (£9,600) over allegations he made in Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore’s Justice in the Dock.“
Tag: 11.16.10
Paul Auster Doesn’t Think His Books Are Obscure or Difficult
“The funny thing is I think they’re absolutely easy to understand. My books are about the real world, I’m not writing escapist fantasies. Listen,, what I strive for is lucidity in every sentence.”
Warsaw’s 20th-Century Avant-Garde, Kept in Suspended Animation
“Unbeknownst to most residents of 64 Aleja Solidarnosci (Solidarity Boulevard) – a drab gray Communist block near Old Town in Warsaw – an apartment on the top floor is one of the most important places in Poland’s avant-garde art history.”
Why Some People Self-Injure: Pain Can Make Them Feel Better
In several studies, brain scans indicated that “pain led to decreased activity in the areas of the brain associated with negative emotion.” And you really do feel better when the pain stops: “it turns out that both general negative emotion and pain-induced negative emotion are processed in the same brain areas. This means that pain relief and emotional relief are essentially the same thing.”
Orange County Arts Study: Admissions Up, Revenues Down
“For 24 nonprofit arts organizations surveyed both in 2005 and 2009, the average price dropped 15.5%, from $29.10 to $24.60, the study found. Paid admissions grew 11.6%, reaching 1.9 million. But the combined box office returns of the 24 arts groups were down almost 6% from mid-decade, from $49.7 million to $46.8 million.”
Remembering Gorecki And His Moment
“He was known for his cancellations, as even the pope discovered. Kronos waited 12 years for a piece that was so personal he couldn’t let it out of his sight until the right moment mysteriously arrived. And I always loved him more for that devotion to his muse.”
Fort Worth Symphony Players Accept Pay Cuts
“Musicians of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, who have been performing without a contract since August, voted Tuesday night to approve a two-year contract that reduces their base pay for the current season by 13.5 percent.”
Huntington to Receive $100M Bequest
“Now that the late Frances Brody’s other heirs have received their shares of her fortune, the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens has a much clearer idea of its own windfall from the L.A. art patron’s estate: a gift expected to easily exceed $100 million.”
Why Do the National Book Awards Bar Fairy Tales?
The rules “don’t exclude ‘retellings of the Bible and Shakespeare’s plays,’ or, for that matter, retellings of any other literary form. The singling out of fairy and folk tales belies a long-standing uneasiness with the form, its vaguely disreputable air. The fairy tale plays havoc with the premium we moderns place on originality.”
Walter Raleigh Gives ‘The Lie’
“No one has ever given the lie more memorably, explicitly, and universally than Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) in ‘The Lie.’ The poem, among other things, demonstrates the power of repetition and refrain. The power, too, of plain rather than fancy or arcane words – for example, blabbing.“