Judith Martin: “English readers in the early 17th century assumed Tom Coryate, a professional jester turned travel writer, was joking when he reported that Italians did not attack their food with hands and hunting knives as did normal people, even normal royalty. Those finicky Italians wielded forks, a nicety that did not become common in the rest of Europe for another two centuries.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Is This The Point Where M. Night Shyamalan Went Awry?
“Ten years ago, [he] was on top of the world, touted as ‘the next Spielberg’ by Newsweek.” These days audiences are known to boo when they see his name in a movie trailer. Kyle Buchanan suggests that the turning point can be found in a weird little 2004 cable TV “pseudo-documentary”.
What It’s Like To Act For Lars Von Trier
Paul Bettany: “As an actor, I have questions. I want to know what I’m doing. And he simply wouldn’t talk to me. You’re not allowed to talk about the film and there is no rehearsal. … He just stands there and says [mimics Danish accent]: ‘Louder! Louder! Do it louder!’ That’s the extent of your collaboration. You know what it’s like? It’s like he’s Jackson Pollock and you’re on the sidelines, mixing his colours.”
The Latest City To Use Classical Music To Repel Vagrants
“Later this month, Paris will become the latest in a string of international cities to pipe classical music into its train stations in an effort to chase off vagrants and youthful toughs who loaf about and ostensibly make life unpleasant for rail travelers.” But the French national railroad is asking passengers to help choose the playlist.
Bertrand Russell Explains How Smoking Saved His Life
(Should we be running this without a warning from the FDA?)
Jeeves And Wooster To Hit The Stage For The First Time
“There are the books of course, TV series in the sixties and nineties, radio adaptations and a musical take from Andrew Lloyd Webber but, dash it, never a stage play featuring one of the greatest comedy double acts ever conceived.”
Does Reading Great Literature Really Make Us Better People?
“Wouldn’t reading about Anna Karenina, the good folk of Middlemarch and Marcel and his friends expand our imaginations and refine our moral and social sensibilities? If someone now asks you for evidence for this view, I expect you will have one or both of the following reactions. First, why would anyone need evidence for something so obviously right? Second, what kind of evidence would he want?”
Why Don’t American Critics Write More Hatchet Jobs? (Asks A Brit)
Clive James: “Ripping somebody’s reputation is recognized blood sport [in Britain]. Shredding a new book is a kind of fox hunting that is still legal today. Such critical violence is far less frequent in America. Any even remotely derogatory article in an American journal is called ‘negative,’ and hardly any American publication wants to be negative.”
Oslo Okays New Waterfront Munch Museum
“Plans to move the Munch Museum to a new glass structure on Oslo’s waterfront finally got the official green light on Tuesday last week – four years after the Spanish architectural firm Herreros Arquitectos won the competition to design the new building.”
Ballet’s Not Dead – It’s More Creative Than It’s Been In Years
“For about two decades after the death in 1983 of the great choreographer George Balanchine, critics lamented the dearth of important new dance makers in classical ballet. … Then at the dawn of the 21st century came Christopher Wheeldon at the New York City Ballet, and Alexei Ratmansky at the Bolshoi Ballet. Suddenly ballets seemed to offer something fresh and new.” And they’re not by any means the only ones.