Louis Menand: “Michael Robbins, Ben Lerner, and Matthew Zapruder all tell pretty much the identical story about themselves. One day, almost inadvertently, they read a poem, and suddenly they knew that they had to become writers. They did, and it changed their lives. Later, they all wrote books about poetry. I read those books, and it changed my life. You read this piece about those books. Maybe it will change your life. If it does, the change will be very, very tiny, but most change comes in increments. Don’t expect too much out of any one thing. For although the world is hard, words matter. Rock beats scissors. It may take a while, but paper beats rock. At least we hope so.”
Blog
Here’s An Isaac Bashevis Singer Story, Translated Into English For The Frst Time
In “The Gift of the Mishnah,” as the editors put it, “19th-century Hasidism meets its radical grandchildren in the 20th.”
Tom Stoppard, Now In His Eighties, Dazzled By The Wealth Of Topics For His Next Play
The playwright politely ducked the question about what might come next, saying that he was eternally on the hunt for material—in magazines, newspapers, science journals, monographs—but hadn’t yet located something that felt like a script. Brexit fascinated him, he added, as did the rise of Trump. He’d also considered writing a drama about cloning, and another on the Leveson inquiry. So far, though, nothing has quite stuck. “I like to think that something is marinating. I read out of a combination of normal interest and the hope that there will be a play in there, or the half-notion of a play.”
‘Temple’ To Oscar Wilde To Open In Greenwich Village Church
“[In September,] the artist duo McDermott & McGough will unveil the Oscar Wilde Temple, a public installation at the Church of the Village in New York’s West Village neighborhood. … Forced to repress his homosexuality for the majority of his life, Wilde is presented in McDermott & McGough’s piece as a martyr of sorts – a soul who suffered because of what he believed and who he was.”
How Video Games Have Evolved Into A Significant Role In Scientific Research
“At first glance, today’s video gamers and scientists might appear to be worlds apart. But starting with Tennis for Two, video games have quietly and consistently been within the purview of academic study. Each generation of gamers has seen new titles created at various research institutions in order to explore programming, human-computer interaction, and algorithms. Lesser-known chapters of history reveal these two worlds are not as far apart as you might think.”
Your Brain Doesn’t *Contain* Memories – It *Is* Memories
“This isn’t just metaphysical poetics. Every sensory experience triggers changes in the molecules of your neurons, reshaping the way they connect to one another. That means your brain is literally made of memories, and memories constantly remake your brain. This framework for memory dates back decades.”
Struggling Cleveland Institute Of Music In A Turnaround?
There are a few factors at play here. One is the influence of a new president with a less-than-traditional background — he hails from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s business operations rather than academia. The other is a recently completed effort to assuage the concerns of one of the institute’s accrediting bodies, which institute officials say has made the institution stronger.
Re-Watching The TV Show That Made President Trump Possible
When Emily Nussbaum saw that notorious televised Cabinet meeting, she realized she had to go back and look at The Apprentice.
Three Paintings On Loan From The Louvre Catch Fire
Three paintings from the collection of the Louvre, and another 200 canvases belonging to a local maritime museum, went up in flames last Tuesday, when severe lightning caused a fire on the small island of Tatihou on the French side of the English Channel.
With Foreign Actors Flooding Peak-TV Hollywood, Somebody Has To Teach Them Good American Accents – Here’s One Of The Teachers
“Television viewers, exposed to hundreds of different dialects every day, are increasingly aware of the tiniest differences in how people speak, even as the number and degree of distinctions continue to expand. … But the specificity isn’t relegated to stars. [Coach Samara] Bay says she was recently dispatched to the set of another TV show to work on a bit player’s Haitian Creole.”