Nigeria has been a literary hub for many decades, but now “a new wave of thematically and stylistically diverse fiction is emerging from the country, as writers there experiment with different genres and explore controversial subjects like violence against women, polygamy and the rise of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
The Fine Art Of Making (Fine) Books
Check out Gray Zeitz and the Larkspur Press in Kentucky: “Zeitz left the University of Kentucky in the winter of 1974, half a semester away from finishing an English degree. He’d been learning letterpress work – the way individually set type makes an impression on high-quality paper –- and he wanted to make fine books, especially poetry. At that time, the letterpress craft was fading as printers moved to faster offset printing. But to Zeitz the moment seemed right. He didn’t need electricity at first, or indoor plumbing. He’d grow tobacco to sell and they’d raise calves. Kentucky writers would be featured.”
The Netflix Adaptation Of Margaret Atwood’s ‘Alias Grace’ Shows What Real Horror Is
The horror is the one reflected in the one painting in the book and adaptation – Guido Reni’s Susannah and the Elders. The horror runs through the heart of everything. “Everyone is possessed by the same demon that no one can exorcise. It’s a horror so pervasive and unimaginable that a glimpse of its true power drives Doctor Jordan mad.”
Here’s Prokofiev, Balancing Between Stravinsky And Haydn, Trying To Decide How To Be Himself
Maybe he was a bit of a jokester: “This was Prokofiev doing his best impression of those guys, but not in the way he had youthfully aped Stravinksy’s style. This time it was, bear with me, a bit. A joke. You’re supposed to be in on the ‘Classical’ Symphony. Recognize its themes and rhythms and what he’s doing.”
The Mall, Once A Center Of Shopping, Is Now More Likely To Be Your Gym
Even mall architecture is changing to fit the new concept in a space where retail is on the wane. “Gyms fit into a broader push by mall owners to reinvent themselves as centers of entertainment at a time when so much of apparel sales have moved online. Landlords are adding restaurants, ice-skating rinks, pools and other recreational options to boost sagging foot traffic.”
Can This Town In Croatia Parlay A Rusting Yacht Into Status As A ‘Capital Of Culture’?
It’s not just any yacht – it belonged to Yugoslav leader (and uniter) Josep Tito. “If officials have their way, Tito’s boat will become a museum to display the complex history of Rijeka and serve as a point of pride for the nation.” Alert: Croatia’s far-right politicians, whose power is surging, are not into this idea.
Top AJBlogs Post From The Week And Weekend Of 11.26.17
The Literary Roots of Lou Reed
Back in the spring, when I pitched the Los Angeles Review of Books on a regular column on musicians and their literary interests, my editor immediately came up with the title All the Poets. … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrashPublished 2017-11-24
Almanac: Henry James on commercial theater
“Then the mixture was to be stirred to the tune of perpetual motion and served, under pain of being rejected with disgust, with the time-honoured bread-sauce of the happy ending.” Henry James, preface to Theatricals: … read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2017-11-24
Piano Sonata as Video Game: Anomalies in My Reception of Beethoven’s Music
A transcript of my spoken remarks at Boston University this week, as part of a symposium on piano sonatas by Beethoven. “I’d like to talk about what I would call anomalies in my own reception … read more
AJBlog: PianoMorphosisPublished 2017-11-23
Major Advertisers Freeze Spending On YouTube Over That Platform’s Inability To Stop Sexual Predators
Adidas, DeutscheBank, Mars, Cadbury, Lidl and more have pulled ads entirely from YouTube after The Times of London discovered that “the marketers’ ads had run in videos with young girls in underwear, doing the splits, and rolling around in bed — which included sexually inappropriate comments posted by viewers.”
Will ‘Mudbound’ Be The Netflix Movie That Breaks Netflix’s Oscar Drought?
Director Dee Rees, who did Pariah in 2011 and HBO’s Bessie in 2015, had a much larger budget – and has much more marketing backing – for this movie, but she also says, “A bigger budget can buy you more background … but it’s not going to buy you better performances. For me, the directing work is still in the performances. It’s still in the blocking, the composition. Money doesn’t buy you better frames, you know what I mean?”
A Landscape Artist, Where The Land Is Filled With Markers Of Unceasing Digital Surveillance
Trevor Paglen, for the last two decades (yes, digital surveillance has been going on for that long and longer) “has been on a mission to photograph the unseen political geography of our times. His art tries to capture places that are not on any map – the secret air bases and offshore prisons from which the war on terror has been fought – as well as the networks of data collection and surveillance that now shape our democracies, the cables, spy satellites and artificial intelligences of the digital world.”