The actor said he’s “incredibly flattered to have been suggested to be involved with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA),” but he’d be better suited for a role helping veterans. “I believe I could be more effective by bringing national attention to returning military personnel in an effort to find gainful employment, suitable housing and financial assistance these heroes respectfully deserve.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Fast-Selling, Best-Selling, And Literary Success (Explained)
Bestsellers are different from fast sellers, cult favourites or the brand known as “instant classics”. They bear no relation to those books we call “the canon”, such as Pride and Prejudice – which became a “bestseller” relatively recently, when it was remodelled as chick lit. The term has become a slippery one and is often used to describe the thing it’s not. Most of the books promoted by Waterstones as bestsellers are nothing of the sort. They don’t come close to the sales figures required (4,000 to 25,000 copies a week in hardback). Bestsellers are not simply the summer’s top beach reads; they are cultural phenomena, and we like to think that they come, like J K Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone or E L James’s Fifty Shades of Grey, out of left field.
It Wasn’t Too Long Ago That Indie Bookstores Were Dying. The Best Of These Are Now Thriving
“While browsing shelf after shelf of interesting finds is the foundation of an inspiring bookstore experience, it takes a secret sauce of qualities to make the best of the indies: a charming ambience complete with homey touches—think cool and comfy seating plus resident four-legged friends; a welcoming and shockingly knowledgeable staff, the quirkier the better; and a dedication to cultivating a community of book lovers, whether of the local or traveling variety.”
How George Orwell’s “1984” Became An Iconic Work
Television lives by viewing figures. Those for Nineteen Eighty-Four were, for a live drama, unprecedented. The tally (seven million) was exceeded only by that for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth the previous year. “Big Brother is watching you.”’ “doublethink,” “thought- crime” and the “two-minute hate” became catchphrases. They still are. The 1954 televization jump-started Orwell’s upward progress to his present status as the Cassandra of his time.
The Best New Buildings Of 2016
The Architect’s Newspaper chooses the best new buildings of the year. Jurors’ judgments were based “on evidence of innovation, creative use of new technology, sustainability, strength of presentation, and, most importantly, great design.”
Populism’s War On Elitism (And On Quality?)
There was a time when to be elite meant to be something special – to be “chosen” or “select”. The OED says the English noun is “The choice part or flower (of society, or of any body or class of persons)”. But 2016 has not been a good one for elites, and the term has become a junk condemnation – “people with unearned privileges who keep honest folks from getting a fair shake.”
America has always had a distrust of experts, and in recent elections those who are expert or elite have been blamed for anything that hasn’t worked when it should. Politically this has been an effective tactic, but it also speaks to other sectors of our culture. Critics are elites who aren’t in touch with common opinion. “High” art is elitist because it holds itself out as better than popular culture.
Elites are suspect because they suggest complexity, nuance and ambiguity in a reactive age that demands simple answers.
Populist anger is hardly surprising: elite financiers tanked the global economy, elite economists failed to foresee it and political elites failed to respond effectively enough. Those elites in the crosshairs had to find other elites to blame, and they did so. Elite scientists and Hollywood liberals whining about climate change cost coal miners their jobs. Elite London journalists noshing on sushi ignore the problems that hard-working northern Brits suffer as a result of immigration. Cultural elites police what can be said about minorities. And so on. But the rush to blame elites has nearly everyone in the crosshairs
The populist uprising against elites threatens also to be a war on excellence, on achievement, on accomplishment. As we increasingly define quality using algorithms that really measure popularity, the meaning of elite as special or choice are in danger of being marginalized.
Elites? What Elites? Defending Against Vague Scapegoating
“If pundits can agree on anything about 2016, it is surely that it has been bad for elites. Populist wave after populist wave has broken over Western politics, with a vote for Brexit, the election of Donald Trump and Italy’s loss of a popular young prime minister over a constitutional referendum that he called—and lost. The masses are out for blood, and the elites are quaking.”
Does This 300-Year-Old Ruggieri Violin Look So Good Because It Was Buried With Its Owner?
Violinist Chun-Yee owns the instrument, and it is pristine. After a performance in Israel, an audience member asked her about her Ruggieri. “My father often wondered about your violin,” she says he told her. “The reason he was wondering is he had heard that it had been buried with one of its owners.”
Rocky For NEA Chairman? Okay, Well…
To be sure, this is a weakly attributed story, even if it does open with a decent Rambo pun and a cheap allusion to Trump’s campaign slogan. And the rest of the Mail‘s story is just backfill on Stallone’s support for previous Republican candidates like John McCain in 2008. But, man, do I hope it’s true. Here’s why…
Canada’s Essential National Culture Question
“How does a mid-sized power maintain any notion of cultural sovereignty in the face of the aptly acronymed FANG? (That’s Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google.) France, more aggressive than Canada in protecting and promoting its cultural industries, has always lent a sympathetic ear, and Paris is the home of UNESCO, the United Nations body charged with protecting culture internationally.”