“Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom” is a piece Plath wrote when she was 20 and submitted to Mademoiselle magazine, which rejected it (too dark!). Faber, which is publishing it in January, lets us have an advance look. — The Guardian
Author: Matthew Westphal
Aldo Parisot, Prominent Cellist And Revered Teacher, Dead At 100
He recorded and toured the world as a soloist and chamber musician through the 1960s and ’70s, but he’s best remembered for his 60-year tenure on the faculty of the Yale School of Music, from which he retired only last summer. — The New York Times
The Stage Does A Full Survey Of West End Theatres’ Bathrooms: There Just Aren’t Enough
There especially aren’t enough stalls for women. For the average West End venue, a full house would mean the intermission would need to be an hour long to give every woman the chance to relieve herself (and that’s assuming each one needs only 90 seconds). — The Stage
Buyer, Not Seller, Must Pay Royalties When Artwork Is Resold, Rules France’s Supreme Court
“The decision has been welcomed by Christie’s France, which is behind the move to pass on the expense to the buyer. The auction house is ultimately responsible for paying the levy to the collecting agency, but it is now its right to ask for the money from the buyer.” — The Art Newspaper
Dance Magazine’s Ten Biggest Stories Of 2018
“What did our readers care about most in 2018? Judging by our top-clicked stories, topics as broad as confronting a bullying teacher, investigating how Instagram has impacted the dance world and advocating for dance as an intellectual pursuit were the biggest stories in dance this year.” — Dance Magazine
Saudi Arabia Asks Netflix To Block An Episode Of Hasan Minhaj’s Show; Netflix Promptly Complies
In one episode of the comedian’s Netflix series, Patriot Act, Minhaj let loose on the Saudi government’s murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Said government, unamused, demanded that Netflix block that episode from being streamed in the Kingdom, citing its law banning “production, preparation, transmission, or storage of material impinging on public order, religious values, public morals, and privacy.” — NPR
Happy New Year: Quotes To Inspire A Lovely 2019
“Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.” (Mark Twain)
— Doug Ramsay
Lookback: A child’s Christmas in Smalltown, U.S.A.
An excerpt from City Limits: Memories of a Small-Town Boy, my first book, published in 1991. — Terry Teachout
Jonathan Lethem Takes Inventory Of Literature’s Enormous Fake Pharmacy
“The current generation of fictional drugs, rather than bubbling up from nature’s underworld, parachute into stories and novels from the corporate-technological top down. The recent nightmare drugs — for they are, exclusively, nightmares — are pharmaceuticals. … The self’s integrity is under assault not by illicit indulgences but by capitalism’s imperative to market us shiny neurological upgrades — and by our complicit desire to be thus reworked.” — The New York Times Book Review
John Waters Says All His Work Is Political (‘But I’d Never Say That!’)
Among the other things he says: “The National Brainiac, that’s what I really wish I could edit. Imagine me being the editor of a tabloid for intellectuals. Imagining hiding outside their apartments for bathing-suit pictures of Philip Roth.” (Also: “Sample sales are vicious.”) — ARTnews