“The Women’s Prize for Fiction has said it is working on a policy around gender fluid, transgender and transgender non-binary writers after featuring non-binary author Akwaeke Emezi on its latest longlist. … Emezi became the first non-binary trans person to be nominated for the Women’s Prize for Fiction last month, for debut novel Freshwater. – The Bookseller (UK)
Author: Matthew Westphal
For Its National Book Week, The Netherlands Makes Trains Free If You Showed A Book Instead Of A Ticket
Not just any book, mind you. “Traditionally, a well-known Dutch author writes a special novel – the book week gift or Boekenweekgeschenk – which is given out for free to people who buy books during the festivities or sign up to a library. But the special book … can also be presented instead of a rail ticket on every train in the country on the Sunday of book week.” – The Independent (UK)
Stairway To Heaven? Designs Revealed For New Shanghai Grand Opera House
“The building’s most prominent feature will be a helical roof that connects to the ground via a spectacular open-air spiral staircase. Snøhetta has designed this to resemble an unfolding fan, evoking ‘the dynamism of dance and the human body’. The building is reminiscent of the Oslo Opera House completed by the firm in 2008, which also featured a publicly accessible roof that slopes down to meet the waterfront.” – Dezeen
Salvador Dalí, Book Illustrator
“Throughout the second half of his life, Dalí had a curious side-project … illustrating the Western canon: Don Quixote and Macbeth in 1946; The Divine Comedy between 1951 and 1964; the Bible between 1963 and 1964; Alice in Wonderland in 1969; Henry V and Henry VI in 1970; The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel in 1973; and Paradise Lost in 1974. Browsing a shelf of the West’s most renowned titles, it’s surprisingly hard to find one for which he didn’t do the pictures.” – Artsy
A University Course In Bullshit Detection (Because Bullshit Really Is Everywhere)
“Calling Bullshit: Data Reasoning in a Digital World” at the University of Washington “is not dedicated to teaching students that Fox News promotes ‘fake news or that National Enquirer headlines are fallacious. Instead, the class operates under the assumption that the structures through which today’s endless information comes to the consumer — algorithms, data graphics, info analytics, peer-reviewed publications — are in many ways as full of bullshit as the fake news we easily recognize as bogus.” – Pacific Standard
Federal Judge Strikes Down Oklahoma Law About Marketing Of Native American Art
“U.S. District Judge Charles B. Goodwin ruled that the Oklahoma Indian Arts and Crafts Sales Act violates the U.S. Constitution because it is more restrictive than a federal law with the same purpose — protecting and promoting Indian artists. The Oklahoma law requires artists to be members of a federally recognized tribe if they are to market their art as American Indian. The federal law also allows members of tribes recognized only by a state to market art as American Indian, along with artists certified by Indian tribes.” – The Oklahoman
The Comma Queen Reports From The Big Copy Editors’ Convention
The New Yorker‘s Mary Norris on the American Copy Editors Society annual conference: “But the centerpiece of the weekend is the session at which the A.P. announces changes to its annual style guide. It was standing room only in Narragansett A as Paula Froke, the lead editor of the A.P. Stylebook, ran through her slides. … You could feel the excitement in the room when a slide appeared with the heading ‘HYPHENS!'” – The New Yorker
The Scripts From The Translating-Shakespeare-Into-Modern-English Project Are In
“Four years ago, the news that the Oregon Shakespeare Festival had commissioned modern English ‘translations’ of all of Shakespeare’s plays drew headlines, and no small alarm, from purists who saw it as a kind of literary vandalism. Now, the public will have a chance to judge the full fruits of the effort for itself” as all 39 scripts get public readings in June in New York. Jennifer Schuessler looks into the progress of the project and the guidelines the commissioned playwrights followed. – The New York Times
Emmett Till, Censorship, And The Creation Of ‘The Twilight Zone’
“[Rod] Serling, riding off the success of his most well-received teleplay to date, felt compelled write a teleplay around the racism that led to Till’s murder. But the censorship that followed by advertisers and networks, fearful of blowback from white, Southern audiences, forced Serling to rethink his approach. His response, ultimately, was The Twilight Zone, the iconic anthology series that spoke truth to the era’s social ills.” – Smithsonian Magazine
Lyle Tuttle, 87, ‘Granddaddy Of Modern American Tattooing’
“Tuttle, who considered himself a social pioneer, was celebrated for pushing tattoos toward mainstream acceptance, especially for women. He left his indelible mark on stars such as Janis Joplin, Joan Baez and Cher (that was his work on her derrière in the ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ video) – along with more hirsute clients, such as Henry Fonda and the Allman Brothers.” – San Francisco Chronicle