It’s nice to think that Bruce Chatwin, who died in 1989 from AIDS, would be happy to see people on the street, rallying for natural beauty, helping preserve what struck him so profound.
Are you in Boston? Right now? And also tonight?
I’m hoping Simone reads from her essay featuring the Skoptsy, a religious sect in 19th-century Russia, whose most defining belief was the necessity of castration.
Miseducating children is getting easier all the time
I posted last week about books you probably shouldn’t read to your children but might want to anyway. Well, now you can download the audiobook “Go the Fuck to Sleep” for free from audible.com, narrated by…Samuel L. Jackson!
You’ve read the books. You’ve watched the films. Maybe you’ve played the drinking games that go with those films (and perhaps you’ve discovered that the narratives offered by those films aren’t so accurate after all.) What next?
The Saddest Music in the World
Even if you erase the words and leave just the melody of the speaker’s voice, people can tell that what’s being said is “sad” from the movement of the sound of the speakers voice.
Last Thursday Haruki Murakami was awarded the International Catalunya Prize at a ceremony in Barcelona. In his acceptance speech, Murakami delivered a harsh critique of his country’s reliance on nuclear power.
James Ivory will direct a film adaptation of Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel Gilead.
It’s a real scorcher in Philly today, so I thought I’d avoid taxing the heat-sensitive faculties required of the ruminative arts and post a few sweet infographics instead of attempting to write anything of Substance.
For the younger reader, kind of
Being frequently in the company of a two-year-old myself, I got to wondering what else was out there in the way of instructional and fortifying alternative literature for youngsters. Here are a few favorites I found.
Téa Obreht is the Youngest Ever Winner of the Orange Prize
I’ve been pretty critical of the “look how young she is!” narrative — it’s condescending and irrelevant — but I’ll put that aside for the moment. She’s young! Her agent’s young! Her editor’s young! Youth movement!