Should Granta’s list of best young novelists have used age as a criterion? What, after all, does youth have to do with promise when it comes to writing? “Is it pinpointing the best writers of this year alone, or attempting to predict who will cast a shadow over the literary landscape until the announcement of the next list in 2013?
Blog
Married To Competition
Claire Tomalin and Michael Frayn are married to one another, but they’re also finalists for a Whitbread Award and competing. “Perhaps the most startling thing the Frayn/Tomalin news has brought to light is the suspicion – or perhaps it’s even a schadenfreudian certainty – that writers must not get on. They are, we seem to imagine, selfish, competitive and vampiric by nature – sucking real life and friendships dry for the sake of fiction.”
Are Easter Island Stone Heads Authentic?
Are two large Easter Island stone heads for sale in a Miami gallery really 1000 years old? “The Chilean government, which claimed the Pacific island in 1888, is investigating whether the pieces are genuine antiques smuggled from Chile or skillful reproductions. An expert on the island’s archaeology says they seem to be carved from island stone with modern tools.” Archeologists are on their way to investigate…
Music – Not Words – Is The Best American Propaganda
The US State Department has enlisted writers to write about the virtues of America in a propaganda effort. “Regardless of whether you buy into this kind of cultural marketing, it’s clear that the State Department chose the wrong medium. American book publishers can tell you that American men between 18 and 30 don’t read a lot of books. The Arab street reads even fewer—just one book, mostly: the Quran. The United States should have followed the lead of Arab governments, which know that music is the region’s most powerful form of expression. That’s why they use it for propaganda—and also why they ban so much of it.”
Cleaning Up – NY State Expunges Ethnic References In Exam Lit Examples
It appears the state of New York is still “sanitizing” literary excerpts for its state high school regents exam. “State education officials had been doctoring the literary reading samples on state tests to make sure nothing offensive was included. It didn’t matter if it was Anton Chekhov or Isaac Bashevis Singer, state bureaucrats removed references to race, religion, ethnicity, sex, nudity and even alcohol. ‘Jews’ and ‘gentiles’ were excised from Singer. An Annie Dillard excerpt about growing up white in a black area was purged of racial references.”
Finders Keepers?
Should big museums be considered “world” museums and be allowed to keep art they hauled off from other countries? Not surprisingly, the big museums think so. They signed a declaration asserting that policy in December. “So far the public debate has been conducted very much in terms of the value of restitution, but there has been much less debate about the importance of the context which a great museum offers.”
The Comfort Factor
“The aesthetic revolutions of the 20th century, in painting, music and literature, reflected the galvanizing cataclysms of the times – the world wars, the Holocaust, the nuclear peril. Now, when the world seems more fragile, dangerously fragmented and morally ambiguous than ever, may not be the time for more form-smashing revolution in the arts. The great artists of our time are like spiders, poised on a web that spans the past as well as the precarious present. They sense vibrations, from now and then, and spin out glittering new strands of connection.”
German Officials Defend Nazi Art Show
German officials are defending the exhibition in Berlin of an art collection owned by the family of a major arms supplier to the Nazis by arguing the exhibit would “help heal the scars of Adolf Hitler’s crusade against modern art.” An official explains: “This altruistic gesture should not be overloaded with politics. It’s a gesture toward a city particularly marked by the history of the last century.” She was referring to the Nazis’ hatred of modern art, which saw many works destroyed and others by the likes of van Gogh and Picasso displayed in infamous ‘Degenerate Art’ shows.
Pearl Memorial Behind Closed Doors
Jan Herman reports that while a memorial to murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl has been decided on, access to it it will be in the WSJ headquarters, where the general public doesn’t have access to it…
Colorado Springs Orchestra Declares Bankruptcy
The Colorado Springs Symphony board of directors has followed through and declared the orchestra bankrupt. The orchestra had demanded wage cuts from the orchestra musicians and gave a deadline of Thursday night. “In a letter delivered to management at 4 p.m., the musicians agreed to discuss the conditions for possible contract renegotiations but did not immediately accept any of the orchestra’s demands. Declaring that this action did not go far enough, the board’s executive committee decided Thursday evening to proceed with the bankruptcy filing.”