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Sunday, June 12, 2022

Australia’s New Arts Minister Promises That The Government Will Stop Attacking The Arts

The Coming Storm”: 

“All feeling hearts must feel for him

Who felt this picture. Presage dim--

Dim inklings from the shadowy sphere

Fixed him and fascinated here.

 

“A demon-cloud like the mountain one

Burst on a spirit as mild

As this urned lake, the home of shades.

But Shakspeare’s [sic] pensive child

 

“Never the lines had lightly scanned,

Steeped in fable, steeped in fate;

The Hamlet in his heart was ’ware,

Such hearts can antedate.

 

“No utter surprise can come to him

Who reaches Shakspeare’s core;

That which we seek and shun is there--

Man’s final lore.”


In Photos: 100 Days Of War In Ukraine


 Top Gun was released exactly on 16 May 1986 the day  Christopher and Lidka got married.

“Recently even the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

“Good looking guys sweating all the time and walking around with their shirts off—yeah, that was definitely Tony Scott and Co.'s bid for female viewership and their attempt to give the film a gritty and edgy sexiness.”


Top Gun is the film that turned a promising young actor called Tom Cruise into a movie star. In fact, you could say he went supersonic. Which is apt, because a whole 36 years later, he’s back in the cockpit for Top Gun: Maverick, and wait until you cop a load of what he and a new generation of precocious aviators get up to. It is mind-blowing.


Top Gun: Maverick betrays Hollywood's weakness in China


Who Is Diagnosing Where We Are In History Right Now?


Australia’s New Arts Minister Promises That The Government Will Stop Attacking The Arts

That this should be considered news says something about the state of things in Australia after years of rule by the conservative Coalition. Declared Tony Burke, the arts minister for the newly elected Labor government, "The nine-year political attack on the arts and entertainment sector is now over." -...

Your Brain Is Begging You: Please Slow Down!

A third of all Americans clock 45 hours or more of work per week, with 8 million reporting 60-plus hours. Compared with 1940, individuals now consume almost 90 times more screen-fed information. That’s 82 hours per week – or 69 per cent of our waking hours. That’s a lot. - Psyche


David Cronenberg On Our Bodies And The Future Of Movies

One of the things that brought me back to moviemaking was Netflix and the idea of streaming and a streaming series. I think theaters are dead. I think they’ll be a niche thing for superhero movies. I haven’t gone to the cinema for decades. You know, I just prefer...

Christian Publishing Is Having A Boom In Doomsday Literature

"Following the pandemic and amid escalating global tensions as well as environmental concerns, Christian publishers say they are acquiring more books now than in years past on how to live faithfully in the present and properly prepare for (the Rapture, Armageddon, and other) End Times events." - Publishers Weekly

Though the number of Americans who said that they personally were “doing at least okay” actually rose slightly from 2019 to 2021, their evaluation of the national economy plummeted in that time frame. - The Atlantic

How The Pandemic Has Changed How We Think About Work

Commuting may have a bad reputation, but for a surprising number of people it can be positively enjoyable. - 3 Quarks Daily

Why We Can’t Stop Measuring Things

Around 6,000 years ago, the first standardised units were deployed in river valley civilisations such as ancient Egypt, where the cubit was defined by the length of the human arm, from elbow to the tip of the middle finger, and used to measure out the dimensions of the pyramids....


Why Are We So Attracted To Disaster Stories?

Maybe we rubberneck over disasters because we are bored by our relatively cushy safety. Or maybe we can’t avoid the threats as they creep up on us, which only encourages more distraction.  - The Daily Beast