“Paperbacks had existed in the U.S. since colonial times, but in the 1930s were limited mostly to poorly made ‘pulp’ novels. … [Betty and her husband Ian] started out as importers of Penguin paperbacks from England and founded two enduring imprints: Bantam Books and Ballantine Books, both now part of Penguin Random House.” – Yahoo! (AP)
Blog
This Year’s Serpentine Pavilion Will Look Like Floating Clouds Of Slate
Architect Junya Ishigami’s design for the outdoor structure “will be part rock face, part smog cloud, as if a landslide from an open-cast slate mine had been cut from a hillside and transported to the leafy royal park.” – The Guardian
Playback Theatre As Therapy For Traumatized Syrian War Refugees
“The [program] was organized by Fighters for Peace, which was founded in 2014 by former Lebanese militia members who took part in their country’s destructive 1975-90 civil war and are now peace activists. They have been using playback theater for years as part of their campaign to promote peace and try to prevent another breakout of war in Lebanon.” – Yahoo! (AP)
Government Audit Slams France’s National Workshop For Historical Furnishings
“The Mobilier National, which was set up in the 17th century to decorate royal palaces and continues to restore and supply fine furniture and tapestries for the Elysée Palace and Versailles, needs to be ‘radically reformed’, according to a report by its auditors. National audit office inspectors, which found large quantities of alcohol in Mobilier National’s workshops, said staff were often absent and used tools and equipment to ‘moonlight’ on their own projects.” – The Local (France) (AFP)
Dolly Parton Expands Her Free-Books-For-Kids Program To A Fifth Country
“Ireland becomes the fifth country to benefit from Parton’s generosity, joining the US, UK, Canada and Australia. It’s another welcome step forward for a charity” — the Imagination Library — “that recently celebrated giving away its 100 millionth book (yep, you read that right: One Hundred Million books).” – Melville House
Falling Into The Rabbit Hole Of The Internet (Never To Be Seen Again)
Previously these communities were imposed on us, along with their mental weather. Now we chose them – or believed we did. A person might join a site to look at pictures of her nephew and five years later believe in a flat earth. – London Review of Books
Why We Dance: Six Seattle Dancers Explain
Staying in love with dance takes grit. Choosing to pursue a lifelong relationship with dance involves the risk of physical injury, financial instability and the ups and downs inherent in a creative passion-driven career. – Crosscut
Leonard Pitts: On Writing About Race In America
“A simple thought experiment illustrates the point. If asked to define black literature, you would likely—and promptly—invoke Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison or some other dark-skinned giant of the written word. But what if you were asked to define “white” literature? The mind quails and resists, does it not?” – LitHub
We Need A Different Way Of Thinking About Digital Art
The art market is tied to the system of uniqueness. It is still hard to sell digital files on sticks. But uniqueness contradicts with the nature of digital work, as digital files are identical and can be copied endlessly. This cries out for a new attitude towards digital art and its value that does not lie in uniqueness. It is the opposite. It lies in the accessibility of the works for everyone, from every part of the world. – The Observer
The Viral Influencer Market – How Organizing Attention Works
Sociologists Jennifer Earl and Katrina Kimport have studied the ways that protest tactics and schemes have spread out of political culture and into other spaces, especially entertainment. They coined the phrase “ubiquitous movement practices” to describe how petitions, boycotts, and the like—once tactics used solely for political goals—are now deployed across all kinds of social and cultural concerns from trying to ensure Family Guy remains on the air to trying to get the Postal Service “to issue a Marx Brothers stamp.” – The Atlantic