Sunday, January 31, 2021

Why everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon of Netflix’s French hit, Lupin

 To me it seems that to give happiness is a far nobler goal that to attain it: and that what we exist for is much more a matter of relations to others than a matter of individual progress: much more a matter of helping others to heaven than of getting there ourselves.

— Lewis Carroll, born in 1832

If you are a person who watches Netflix, you have no doubt been greeted on arrival by a recommendation to watch Lupin. If you have not already begun to watch itand are spoiler averse, you may want to stop reading now.

The first episode is arranged to make you think one thing, which raises all kinds of questions, and leaves you thinking quite another, which raises questions of its own. (Oh, there will be questions.) It’s a long bandwagon you may want to join if you want to be somewhere else for a while, a trip to Paris filled with pretty people and views, with action and emotions and just enough meaning – matters of race and class and such – to make you feel that that there is something substantial to the melodrama.


The Captain Of Sea Shanty TikTok Gets A Record Deal

You’ve heard “The Wellerman” by now, no doubt, since the Scottish postman who sang it a TikTok rendition of it went completely – ridiculously – viral. Now he’s quit his job and earned a record contract. But how’s that going to go? Viral stars and those who study them say “the hard part comes months later, when everyone has forgotten what they went viral for, and they attempt to maintain the momentum.” – BBC


You can stream Shakespeare direct from his hometown starting this month

Fast Company – “Here’s a great way to brush up on your Bard while you’re locked down in sweet sorrow. Streaming service BroadwayHD has reached a deal with Britain’s famed Royal Shakespeare Companyto stream a number of past productions from its back catalogue, the companies said today. The theater-centric service will add nine RSC works in January, beginning today with productions of Hamlet and King Learthat were filmed in 2016. Additional works will debut on the platform in February and March. Here’s the full lineup for January:

  • King Lear (2016): starring Antony Sher, directed by Gregory Doran.
  • Antony and Cleopatra (2017): directed by Iqbal Khan, starring Josette Simon and Antony Byrne.
  • Hamlet (2016): starring Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You).
  • Macbeth (2018): starring Christopher Eccleston and Niamh Cusack, directed by Polly Findlay.
  • Measure for Measure (2019): directed by Gregory Doran.
  • Love’s Labour’s Lost (2014): directed by Christopher Luscombe.
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor (2018): directed by Fiona Laird.
  • Two Gentlemen of Verona (2014): directed by Simon Godwin.
  • Timon of Athons (2018): directed by Simon Godwin, starring Kathryn Hunter…”



‘Platypus Fish’ Discovery Changes What We Know About One Type of Evolution Inverse


The Internet Is Shaping, ANd Changing, The Novel

Can a novel be, or feel, contemporary without references to doomscrolling or at least brushing up against social media? “While the internet and mobile phones initially posed problems for fiction writers – not least for their potential to destroy traditional plots of desire and obstruction (chance encounters, missed connections, quests), the dangers of such instant gratification increasingly appear to spark the plot itself.” – The Guardian (UK)