Philosophers have long concerned themselves with what they call “the paradox of fiction”—why would we find imagined stories emotionally arousing at all? The answer is that most of our mind does not even realize that fiction is fiction, so we react to it almost as though it were real. – Nautilus
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How Visual Images Change In The Internet Era
From our present experience of the internet, what changes might we expect? We are all André Malraux now. To create his “museum without walls,” an archive of images from around the world, begun in 1947, he had to collect and sift through thousands of photographs. Now anyone can readily compare any selection of works, setting them side-by-side. – Hyperallergic
Sampling The World Of Zoom Book Clubs
Gail Beckerman joins a New York literary salon now hosted remotely from Nairobi (“I’d never had the experience of watching in close-up such a large group of people actively listening”), the Quarantine Book Club (it hosts an author a day for regulars from all over the globe), the Borderless Book Club (a new novel in English translation every two weeks), a gathering hosted by the Academy of American Poets, a group devoted solely to Hannah Arendt, and a party where everyone logs on and just silently reads (“It’s mesmerizing, found performance art”). – The New York Times
Going for the Archrival’s Jugular? Christie’s Assures Clients About Its “Continuity of Activity”
A message from Christie’s CEO Guillaume Cerutti, which hit my inbox late Friday, included a boldfaced passage that struck me (and probably some of his firm’s clients) as an implied gibe at archrival Sotheby’s. – Lee Rosenbaum
Jürgen Ploog, R.I.P.
“Jay,” the name he went by among close friends, was widely regarded as one of Germany’s premiere second-generation Beat writers. But his narrative fiction — like that of William S. Burroughs, a mentor with whom he was associated — was more experimental and closer to Brion Gysin’s or J.G. Ballard’s than to Jack Kerouac’s or Allen Ginsberg’s. – Jan Herman
‘The Wake World’ comes from somewhere, but where?
Time and again while listening to the new recording of David Hertzberg’s opera, I asked myself, What zeitgeist did this arrive from? What cultural phenomenon contributed to why it was written now? And why have audiences responded to it so readily? Here are the pieces that don’t even begin to add up. – David Patrick Stearns
The Global Music Business Is Extinguished. That May Be A Good thing
The global live music industry is worth some $30 billion every year. Or, rather, was. In a matter of weeks, Covid-19 shut down everything from pub gigs to festivals. And in doing so, it also made apparent the lopsided shape of the modern music industry, in which artists are paid to perform, but often barely anything for the music they record. One of the truisms of the streaming era has been that while Spotify might have gutted the income you make from records, it makes it easier for people to find your music. That grows your live audiences, which is where you make your money. Now, with live audiences at zero, that deal is looking increasingly unworkable. – Esquire
Woman Wins €1 Million Picasso In Raffle
The fundraiser, organized by Christie’s, netted €5.1 million for CARE’s clean-water projects in three African countries. The prize, a small 1921 Nature morte (still-life), went to an Italian woman who received one of the €100 tickets as a gift. – Reuters
Company Creates Drones To Disinfect Theatres
In the innovative system, the disinfectant is stored on the ground, and pumped through a hose to the hovering drone, which then spreads it throughout the theater. Meanwhile, another drone drifts underneath it to make sure that the hose does not get tangled in any of the seats. – Forbes
René Buch, Who Established Professional Spanish-Language Theater In New York, Dead At 94
“[He was] a co-founder and the artistic director of Repertorio Español, … [which since 1968] has reimagined Spanish classics and offered contemporary work by Latin and Latin American playwrights, always in Spanish, performed repertory-style. … And he liked to say that the playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age — Cervantes et al. — should be as well known here as Shakespeare.” – The New York Times