“I write fiction and I’m told its autobiography, I write autobiography and I’m told it’s fiction, and since I’m so dim and they’re so smart , let them decide what it is or isn’t.”
~ MR Yammerite
“Okay, I have written about a monk who burns down a temple. I have written about the woman who kills the man she loves. What about a simple story with a ray of sunshine? What about a story in which two young people meet and fall in love? Why not write that? St.Francis of Assisi said, “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light from a single candle.” Why not light that candle here and see whether it dispels some of the darkness?”
'We are all here for each other': Fire Fight Australia concert raises spirits — and nearly $10m
More than 20 acts perform for 10 hours to an enthusiastic audience at Sydney's Olympic Park, helping to raise close to $10 million to support a range of community organisations involved with fighting the bushfires.
Leopoldstadt
Tom Stoppard's latest (and last ?) play, Leopoldstadt, has opened in London, in a production directed by Patrick Marber; see the official site.
Playbill collects links to the reviews so that I don't have .....
With an ensemble "of 27 adult and 15 child performers" this probably won't be a widely performed play -- there are not that many theaters that can afford such a huge cast (the main reason that most contemporary plays have so few parts).
As a wise woman once wrote, “There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them.”
Roberto Magris And Two Good Czechs
An Italian of Slovenian ancestry who grew up in Trieste, pianist Roberto Magris frequently tours in Europe and the United States. Here, we see and hear him and his colleagues in the Birdland Jazz Club in Neuburg a.d. Donau, Germany. – Doug Ramsey.
He also works in in the United States, where he operates the record label called JMood. Here, we see and hear Magris a few weeks ago in the Birdland Jazz Club in Neuburg a.d. Donau, Germany. With him are the formidable bassist Frantisek Uhlir and drummer Jaromir Helesic, mainstays of modern jazz in the Czech Republic. They play Charlie Parker’s
Systems Of Creativity – How Ideas And Culture Come Together
Cultural institutions are a kind of technology – a social technology. Just as physical technologies – agriculture, the wheel or computers – are tools for transforming matter, energy or information in pursuit of our goals, social technologies are tools for organising people in pursuit of our goals. While we are fascinated and sometimes frightened by the pace of evolution of physical technologies, we experience the evolution of social technologies differently. – Aeon
Another Coronavirus Catastrophe: China’s Cinema Box Office Down By 99.75%
That’s not a typo. The country’s total movie ticket revenue for the past 20 days is down from $1.52 billion for the same period last year to $3.9 million, and the movie industry there may need a government bailout. –The Hollywood Reporter
James Fetzer is a prolific philosopher of science — and an advocate for some of the strangest alien and most odious ideas of our Our Time psts First Known When Lost: COLD River.
Walter Pater wrote one of the finest essays on Wordsworth. Among many other perceptive observations, he notes: "And the mixture in his work, as it actually stands, is so perplexed, that one fears to miss the least promising composition even, lest some precious morsel should be lying hidden within -- the few perfect lines, the phrase, the single word perhaps, to which he often works up mechanically through a poem, almost the whole of which may be tame enough."
… From The Poetry Editor.
… The Forge by John D. Robinson.
…Two Poems By Christopher Barnes.
…Time takes pawns like a short game of chess by DS Maolalai.
…Tree by Louis Gallo.
… The Forge by John D. Robinson.
…Two Poems By Christopher Barnes.
…Time takes pawns like a short game of chess by DS Maolalai.
…Tree by Louis Gallo.
The Jerks Of Academe: Are You One?
Following up on my previous posts (link below): Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed: The Jerks of Academe, by Eric Schwitzgebel (UC-Riverside; author, A Theory of Jerks and Other Philosophical Misadventures (MIT Press 2019)):
Jerks
mostly travel in disguise, even from themselves. But the rising tide
(or is it just the increasing visibility?) of scandal, grisly politics,
bureaucratic obstructionism, and toxic advising in academe reveals the
urgent need of a good wildlife guide by which to identify the varieties
of academic jerk.
So
consider what follows a public service of sorts. I offer it in sad
remembrance of the countless careers maimed or slain by the beasts
profiled below. ...
The
Big Shot. The Creepy Hugger. The Sadistic Bureaucrat. The Embittered
Downdragger. This list is not exhaustive, nor are the types exclusive.
Jerkitude manifests in wondrous variety, and not all the species have
yet been cataloged. Hybrids abound — for example, the past-his-prime Big
Shot who is becoming an Embittered Downdragger.
YOU DON’Y SAY: Audit finds automated license plate reader programs are a privacy nightmare.
The biggest German book prize -- the ... German Book Prize -- is announced in the fall, at the Frankfurt Book Fair, but there's also a big spring book fair in Germany, the Leipzig Book Fair (12 to 15 March this year), and they also have a prestigious book prize -- and whereas the German Book Prize is a single-category prize (novel !) the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair honors books in three categories: fiction, non, and translation.
They've now announced the fifteen finalists for this year's prize(s) -- five in each category, selected from a total of 402 submitted titles.
The fiction finalists include books by Ingo Schulze and Lutz Seiler (whose Kruso won the 2014 German Book Prize).
Translated-book finalists include Oreo by Fran Ross, a novel by A Short Tale of Shame-author Angel Igov, Clarice Lispector's collected stories, and George Eliot's Middlemarch.
The winners will be announced at the book fair, on 12 March.
YOU DON’Y SAY: Audit finds automated license plate reader programs are a privacy nightmare.
The biggest German book prize -- the ... German Book Prize -- is announced in the fall, at the Frankfurt Book Fair, but there's also a big spring book fair in Germany, the Leipzig Book Fair (12 to 15 March this year), and they also have a prestigious book prize -- and whereas the German Book Prize is a single-category prize (novel !) the Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair honors books in three categories: fiction, non, and translation.
They've now announced the fifteen finalists for this year's prize(s) -- five in each category, selected from a total of 402 submitted titles.
The fiction finalists include books by Ingo Schulze and Lutz Seiler (whose Kruso won the 2014 German Book Prize).
Translated-book finalists include Oreo by Fran Ross, a novel by A Short Tale of Shame-author Angel Igov, Clarice Lispector's collected stories, and George Eliot's Middlemarch.
The winners will be announced at the book fair, on 12 March.