Tom Stoppard - David Cohen Prize for Literature
“The Swiss town of Albinen, located in the scenic canton of Valais, wants to pay people 25,000 Swiss francs (£18,900) each to move there.” Smart town Albinen
Smart cities might not be such a bright idea Financial Times
I visit Berlin so often that a lot of my friends actually think that I moved there! Even if I travel for over six hours each day from Bratislava (where I live) and Vienna (where I study fine art and photography), and travel a lot because of the jobs I take on. Berlin has its own magic, with all of its messiness and crazy, spontaneous energy. I can breathe more deeply and forget the world for a while. There I can allow myself to purely enjoy the moment as a well-earned reward...
Paul Davis On Crime: Happy 75th Birthday To Martin Scorsese, Director Of 'Goodfellas,' Casino,' and 'Mean Streets'
Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes
WSJ (sub. req’d): “…Even in the internet age, reference librarians still dig up answers that require extra effort, searching old books, microfilm and paper files, looking for everything from owners of long-defunct firms to 19th-century weather reports. Though online searches are now at the fingertips of most people, many still prefer to call or visit a library. Some can’t or don’t use computers; others recognize librarians have search skills and access to databases that search engines can’t match…Even in Silicon Valley, where people might be expected to be search wizards, libraries get plenty of questions…” [“preaching to the choir,” but come on people, our expertise will always be in demand, our profession is all about “extra effort” and no Google is not the gateway to all knowledge…etc., etc., etc. – thank you to each and every librarian working in America and to those all over the world.]
WSJ (sub. req’d): “…Even in the internet age, reference librarians still dig up answers that require extra effort, searching old books, microfilm and paper files, looking for everything from owners of long-defunct firms to 19th-century weather reports. Though online searches are now at the fingertips of most people, many still prefer to call or visit a library. Some can’t or don’t use computers; others recognize librarians have search skills and access to databases that search engines can’t match…Even in Silicon Valley, where people might be expected to be search wizards, libraries get plenty of questions…” [“preaching to the choir,” but come on people, our expertise will always be in demand, our profession is all about “extra effort” and no Google is not the gateway to all knowledge…etc., etc., etc. – thank you to each and every librarian working in America and to those all over the world.]
Cate Blanchett And The Artistic Manifesto
The director of Blanchett's Manifesto (an art installation ... or a movie?): "The political landscape has shifted towards populism and against 'elitism.' ... 'Every populist wants to cut down cultural budgets and educational budgets for a good reason: because they need stupid minds to be manipulated and to become sheep of consumerism.'" … [Read More]
Louise Erdrich, Who Just Published Her 16th Novel, Is The ‘Great American Novelist’
Ann Patchett thinks she'll win the Nobel Prize someday. She's published 30 books - nonfiction, children's novels, and more. Sherman Alexie says she writes entertaining hyperrealistic literary fiction. And she owns a bookstore. "In a strange way, Louise Erdrich is perhaps our least famous great American writer; she is not reclusive, but she is reticent, and her public appearances give the impression of a carefully controlled performance. But Erdrich has also shared many of her most intimate emotions and experiences, in some form, in her novels." … [Read More]
Writing Nameless Things: An Interview with Ursula K. Le Guin Los Angeles Review of Books
If I told you that the painting was bought for 60,000 bitcoins, would that make it easier to stomach?”
Why We Still Need Chekhov’s Plays, Even After A Century
Lyn Gardner: "If the anniversary of the Russian revolution offers one reason for the current glut of Chekhov revivals, the other may well be the way the plays speak so directly to a world in flux, where the characters cannot comprehend or adjust to the cultural, social and political earthquakes that engulf them." … [Read More]
Odysseus loses all the men under his command, cheats on his wife, lies, and gets help at every turn from the gods. What kind of "hero" is he?
This Dog Sits on Seven Editorial Boards Atlas Obscura
Is the charcoal food trend dangerous?
Black is the new rainbow, at least in food trends. Black ice cream, black bread, black macarons, black pasta, black beverages ...
Jet Pilot Might Not Seem Like a ‘Gig,’ but at Ryanair, It Is NYT
Where the Small-Town American Dream Lives On The New Yorker
World’s 3 Most Successful Public Housing Projects Arch20. The last, Quinta Monroy, is very interesting.
Hey, Mark Zuckerberg: My Democracy Isn’t Your Laboratory NYT. Zuck: “Lol yes it is.”
Imagining a Politics of Love: Hannah Arendt, Billy Budd, Meridian and the Civil Rights Movement Society for U.S. Intellectual History
In the Future, We’ll Love Our Robot Pets, But Will They Love Us Back? The Daily Beast (Re Silc). The first sentence: “Humans are obsessed with robots.”Turnbull rattled over One Nation's pull on conservatives
How Despair Helped Drive Trump to Victory
Trump did well in places that have borne the brunt of declines in manufacturing, mining, and related industries since the 1970s.