“In a ruling long advocated by traditionalists and with implications for other-language versions of the prayer, the bishops have approved a new edition of the French-language bible which will include a revised wording of one of the prayer’s best-known lines, ‘Lead us not into temptation’.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
What Hollywood Is Getting Wrong About Kerouac And the Beats
“The current Beat revival arguably goes too far with its re-imagination of the Beat writers’ livelihoods as simple adolescent goofing around … This crop of films diminishes what was so radical about the Beat Generation in the first place: their iconoclastic approach to life, which extended far beyond their 20s and into adulthood proper.”
Paul Rogers, 96, Acclaimed Actor Of Stage Classics
“With leading-man good looks, an uncommon diligence in preparing for a role and a fervid curiosity that led him across the breadth of the Shakespeare canon, Mr. Rogers spent his early career largely with the Old Vic company, first in Bristol and later in London, compiling a résumé of remarkable variety.”
A Small Army Of Volunteers Proofreads The Complete Tolstoy
“When Leo Tolstoy’s great-great-granddaughter, the journalist Fyokla Tolstaya, announced that the Leo Tolstoy State Museum was looking for volunteers to proofread some forty-six thousand eight hundred pages of her relative’s writings, she hoped to generate enough interest to get the first round of corrections done in six months.” 3,000 people signed up.
Is This The Cello Of The Future? (Or Is It A Stratocaster With A Bow And Some Lights?)
“The 150-year-old German polymer giant Bayer MaterialScience has fashioned the ‘futuristic cello’ from utterly transparent, lightweight cast resin … making what is normally a rather cumbersome instrument easier to play and carry … [and] creating a cello body that acts as a blank canvas for a range of optical effects using integrated technology.”
This Is Surely The First Opera To Combine Vuvuzelas And Blood Libel
“The blaring horns popularized by South African soccer featured in the premiere of Hungarian conductor Iván Fischer’s The Red Heifer about a murder blamed on Jews in northeastern Hungary.”
Oreos May Really Be More Addictive Than Crack
“According to the new study, eating the iconic black and white cookies activated more neurons in the [lab] rat brain’s ‘pleasure center’ than drugs such as cocaine.” (Well, that’s certainly been our experience.)
Harry Belafonte Sues Martin Luther King Estate
“Harry Belafonte is 86, an age that tends to focus the mind on putting one’s affairs in order. And that is why, Mr. Belafonte says, he has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the three surviving children of one of his closest friends: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”
Is Lance Armstrong An HBO Series Antihero Made Flesh?
Ashley Fetters observes just how much the disgraced cyclist has in common with the likes of Walter White in Breaking Bad, Don Draper in Mad Men, Nicholas Brody in Homeland (and maybe, just a bit, Tony Soprano or Dexter).
Booker Prize 2013: Eleanor Catton Becomes Youngest-Ever Winner
“Eleanor Catton made Man Booker prize history twice on Tuesday night the youngest winner for, at 832 pages, the longest novel. The New Zealander was 25 when she began writing The Luminaries, an epic 19th-century gold rush murder mystery.” (She is now 28.)