“Painfully shy, a stutterer and facing bleak prospects as an man in the segregation era, Mr. Myers dropped out of the elite Stuyvesant High School and joined the Army on his 17th birthday. He wrote in his memoir, ‘Bad Boy’ (2001), that books were his friends as he fought despair.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
Reading A Book Means Being On Your Own Little (Democratic) Island
Graham Swift: “Without getting pompous about it, fiction can perform a very important moral and social function. It is highly democratic.”
What’s It Like To Be A Docent In The Hellhole Factory Where You Used To Work?
“Shelton is the only volunteer on the floor of the provocative [Kara Walker] installation who ever worked at Domino’s sugar refinery. Of the several ‘interpreters’ who are on hand to answer visitor questions, his is the only intimate connection to the factory. He found out about the exhibit through an article in the New York Times and knew immediately he wanted to be involved.”
Amazon Battles With Publishers – In Germany
“Whenever Amazon sells a Bonnier e-book, it collects 30 percent of the retail price. But now Amazon wants its share hiked to 50 percent. So far, Bonnier is refusing to budge.”
Psychogeography (What?) Heats Up Again
“It’s tempting to cut through all the bullshit and simply say that it entails a certain kind of deep but informal exploration of places that have a visceral appeal to the explorer.” And apparently, London has the most visceral appeal ever.
Fifty Iconic Books And Authors Turned Into London Street Art
“Each book-shaped bench is decorated with an artist’s rendition of works such as Alex Rider and War Horse, running the gamut from contemporary subway reads to longtime favorites.”
Confessional Writing Is Far From Self-Indulgent
“If the definition of solipsism is ‘a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing,’ then little pushes back against solipsism more forcefully than confession gone public. This kind of confession inevitably creates dialogue.”
The Hardest Question: Do We Have The Right To Exist?
“Unlike most actions whose remote consequences diminish to zero, like the furthermost ripples of a pond after a pebble has been thrown into it, altering when children are conceived or to whom they are conceived has repercussions that steadily increase over time.”
Hard Day’s Night Was A Hard Act To Follow For Music Documentaries
“Not only was it an astute embodiment of the phenomenon we might call ‘Beatletime’ – frantic, fractured, breathless and intoxicating – it was born of speed itself. To be ready when the lights went down for the command performance before Princess Margaret in London in July, 1964, the movie had to be shot and completed in only four months.”
When A Famous Dubstep Dancer Gets His Ballet On
“No one knows nerves like dancers, no matter if they’re in high tops or pointe shoes. Though the rest of us may want to move like dancers and look like dancers, the performers themselves don’t always feel so enviable.”