“Here’s how not to be taken seriously as a woman writer: Use demons and ghosts and other gothic paraphernalia in your fiction. Describe yourself publicly as ‘a practicing amateur witch’ and boast about the hexes you have placed on prominent publishers. Contribute comic essays to women’s magazines about your hectic life as a housewife and mother.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Theatre Festival Bars Audience From Play; Audience Shows Up Anyway And Demands, Politely, To Be Let In
“Hours before the performance Sunday night, the MESS festival announced it would allow only the festival jury to see “Our Violence and Your Violence” by Croatian director Oliver Frljić, an award-winning director whose provocative plays often criticize nationalism and spark protests. The play, which has a fairly abstract plot, contains scenes of nudity and rape.” But the ticketholders weren’t having it.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.11.16
Keep It Simple
In speeches, presentations, and workshops, I frequently get to the Q&A session and find myself faced with not a few perplexed expressions. In general, people understand the importance of community engagement. However, staff members … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-10-11
Picasso and the Perfectly Bearable Likeness of Being
Picasso was, of course, a great and natural draughtsman. Even as a child he had a fluent and steady line, and was capable … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2016-10-11
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A Daisy Chain Of The 82 Funniest Books
“With the publication this month of Today Will Be Different, Maria Semple’s follow-up to Where’d You Go, Bernadette, we got to wondering: What’s the funniest book by a living writer? Well, who better to ask than Maria Semple? The Seattle-based novelist told us her three favorite funny books, so then we asked those three authors. Then we kept asking.”
Portland Art Museum To Expand, Get Access To Rare Rothko Works
“The Portland Art Museum announced today that it will expand, connecting the museum’s two freestanding buildings, and that it will begin a 20-year art lending partnership with Mark Rothko’s children, Christopher and Kate. The partnership will allow the museum to exhibit important Rothko paintings from his children’s private collection on a rotating basis.”
We Use Words To Talk To Others, But Why Do We Need Them To Think To Ourselves?
“Rats in experiments solve mazes without the words ‘Remember that left turn.’ So why do human brains so often rely on language in order to reason and remember? [Research psychologist Charles] Fernyhough has an answer in mind.”
Richard III = Donald Trump? Brush Up Your Shakespeare
“[Richard’s] success in obtaining the crown depended on a fatal conjunction of diverse but equally self-destructive responses from those around him. The play locates these responses in particular characters … but it also manages to suggest that these characters sketch a whole country’s collective failure.” Stephen Greenblatt, general editor of The Norton Shakespeare, lays out the parallels – not so much between the monarch and the mogul as between Richard’s England and Trump’s America.
Police Break Up Ring Of Antiquities Smugglers In Greece
“Greek police have busted what they say is a criminal organisation that has been looting antiquities from ancient sites in the country for the past 10 years and smuggling them out to auction houses and private buyers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the UK.”
Yale Rep Celebrates 50 Years – As Its Founder Worries
“Leave it to Robert Brustein, the outspoken founding director of Yale Repertory Theater, to raise tough questions at a celebration of the theater’s 50th anniversary this weekend. … At a celebratory banquet, he worried out loud about whether nonprofit theaters like Yale’s were straying from their original mission.”
Number Of Visitors Literally Overwhelms DC’s New African-American Museum
“More people want to get in than can be accommodated, even though timed passes are being used to manage the crowds. In the museum’s first 10 days, some 103,000 people visited the history, culture and community exhibitions, officials said. It’s unclear how many more were unable to get passes.”