“I don’t care about ‘feed the trolls’ versus ‘don’t feed the trolls.’ I care about me, and what makes me feel better. And sometimes what makes me feel better is just making fun of some jackass. … And it’s important to me that these people know that harassing me online is not a consequence-free hobby.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
The Filmmaker Who Casts Only Cardboard Actors
“[Guy] Brunet makes his own actors and builds his film sets from found cardboard boxes that he cuts and paints. He paints film posters on old architectural plans and other large paper scraps that he tapes together. He also writes his own screenplays, lends his voice to all the characters in his movies, and even draws the DVD covers for his films.”
‘It’s Cheap Words I Hate, And I Hate Adverbs’
Christian Lorentzen: “Let’s begin with the big problem. The adverb is an incoherent lexical category, a catchall. How are ‘there,’ ‘yesterday,’ ‘quite,’ ‘assiduously,’ and ‘indeed’ all members of the same family?”
Colorism – Why America Still Has Trouble Talking About It
“In a 1983 essay, the writer Alice Walker coined the word to explain ‘prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color.’ Simply: lighter is better. … Yet even as terms like ‘yellowface’ and ‘whitewash’ sink into our cultural vocabulary, there remains confusion on basic matters of colorism.”
They’ve Found A Prop From The Original Production Of ‘Romeo And Juliet’
“Archaeologists excavating the playhouse where Romeo and Juliet was first staged have found artefacts that could have been used during the iconic play’s original production.”
How A Ballerina Gets Back Into Shape After Maternity Leave
“In the ballet world, pregnancy is no longer the secret that a dancer has to hide from the boss. It’s no longer a potential career-ender. But the question remains: How hard is it for a new mother to turn back into a ballerina? The experience is different for every dancer, but in the case of Maria Kowroski, the statuesque New York City Ballet principal, it’s been humbling.”
What ‘The Good Wife’ Was Really About
Joshua Rothman: “The Good Wife has never just been a show about power; it has also been about knowledge and the ways it can change an argument, a court case, a life. … Alicia’s insistence upon the truth (for, it must be said, her own practical ends) was part of a larger debate, staged in the final episode, about the question ‘How much do you want to know?'”
‘Unethical Amnesia’ – How We Conveniently Forget The Times We’ve Behaved Badly
“We hold ourselves to be moral agents in the world, so evidence of wrongdoing creates all sorts of dissonance between our ideas about ourselves and our actual behavior. The unethical amnesia acts like an ‘adaptive defensive behavior,’ helping our egos sidestep unpleasant truths.”
Miró Etchings Auctioned By Grandson To Benefit Syrian Refugees
Joan Punyet Miró: “My grandfather would have done the same thing. He always wanted to help the most disadvantaged, the refugees and those in exile, and would be aware that what is happening today in Syria could happen tomorrow in Spain.”
Pranksters Jailed For Staging Bogus Art Heists For YouTube
“Four men have been jailed for pranks filmed for YouTube channel Trollstation, including a ‘terrifying’ fake art heist in the National Portrait Gallery. … Later that day, the pranksters, who have 718,000 subscribers, staged another fake robbery … [at] the Tate Britain gallery.”