“The experimental novel, Burns’s third, is narrated by an unnamed 18-year-old girl, known as ‘middle sister’, who is being pursued by a much older paramilitary figure, the milkman,” during Northern Ireland’s Troubles. Burns, the first Booker winner from Ulster, “beat writers including the American literary heavyweight Richard Powers; Daisy Johnson, at 27 the youngest author ever to be shortlisted for the award; and the Canadian writer Esi Edugyan.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
France’s Culture Minister Replaced In Cabinet Reshuffle
“Although her appointment in May 2017 by Emmanuel Macron had been welcomed enthusiastically, the fact that she was replaced came as no surprise. [Françoise] Nyssen — whose publishing house, Actes Sud, is one of France’s most successful — had been facing accusations of conflict of interest, in addition to a simmering scandal concerning building permits for which she’s under investigation. … [Franck] Riester, the new minister of culture, is a center-right politician whose primary experience has been in the broadcasting sector.”
Rio De Janeiro’s Ballet Company Is Back On Stage After A Dark, Dark Year
Brazil’s economic crisis ravaged Rio’s Teatro Municipal, home to the city’s ballet and opera; many of the dancers were reduced to accepting food donations. This past June, the ballet performed for the first time in a year, and here’s a report from backstage.
‘Automation Divine’: Early Computer Music And The Selling Of The Cold War
“Matthew Guerrieri dives deep into something particular about the early days of computer music in the United States. It got its start, quite literally, in the off-hour downtime of the military-industrial complex.”
Latest Words on the Banksy Caper (& seller) – Part III
I really wanted to put the Banksy Prank behind me, moving to more substantive matters, but the Sotheby’s plot thickened on Friday with a revelation that suggests the likely identity of the seller of Girl with Balloon (aka Love Is in the Bin).
Monday Recommendation (Unavoidably Delayed)
Wayne Shorter, Emanon (Blue Note)
Although Wayne Shorter’s saxophone artistry and that of his quartet need no enhancement, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra shares the first disc of this three-CD collection.
Introducing
Join us in welcoming Achia Floyd to ArtsEngaged. Here she introduces herself in her own words.
The Immersive Technologies Transforming Theatre
“The industry is experimenting with so-called immersive technologies including: virtual reality, where participants put on a headset to enter a computer-generated world; motion capture, which enables an actor to control a digital avatar through their own movement in real time; and projection mapping, where scenery is projected on to a physical environment and can be changed in the blink of an eye.”
The Power Of Relics: Why Humans Cannot Resist The Magical Potency Of Charismatic Objects
“Throughout history and in all cultural contexts – not just religious ones – people seem to spontaneously endow certain things with special powers, and to proclaim that contact with these persons and things, even by proxy, will have miraculous effects. … Why do humans so often ascribe special powers to things? One place to search for an answer is the cognitive processing that underlies the human understanding of force.”
Reviving Latin As A Spoken Language Is A Politically Fraught Project
“Latin’s revival, among young teachers on the one hand and nostalgic nationalists on the other, appears to flourish on two opposing ends. But while they may seem to be separate, the two are inexorably and uneasily linked through the history of white men’s appropriation of Latin as a marker of superiority.”