Pen Parentis has lasted for more than a decade in a literary world that is decidedly unfriendly to working parents. “‘The way you hear it is in the people who don’t have kids and when you say, ‘We run this thing for parents,’ they say, ‘I’m too dedicated to my career; I could never have kids.’ … And that, to me, as a parent, makes me feel like someone who’s not as dedicated to my career because I decided to have kids, which is wrong.” – Literary Hub
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Great Britain Has Fantastic Public Spaces, And A Kitschy Retail Christmas Market Doesn’t Fill Them Will
Architecture critic Rowan Moore is not thrilled with the thoughtless, crass commercialism filling Trafalgar Square. “It is not the presence of the market, precisely, that’s the problem, so much as the cluelessness with which it and other temporary elements are jammed in among the stonework. These include a crib housed in something like a bus shelter and a makeshift health-and-safety skirt of crush barriers and green tarpaulin around the 25-metre Christmas tree, donated every year by Norway in thanks for British help during the Second World War. If the Norwegians are kind enough to give us a tree … we should at least put a tiny bit of thought into whatever goes around its base.” – The Guardian (UK)
A Grudging Defense Of That Rather Expensive Banana Idea
Let’s go deep: “You are not a hopeless philistine if you find this all a bit foolish. Foolishness, and the deflating sensation that a culture that once encouraged sublime beauty now only permits dopey jokes, is Mr. Cattelan’s stock in trade. But perhaps you will find more to appreciate in Mr. Cattelan’s work if you take note of two points: one formal, one social.” – The New York Times
This Author Did Eight Years Of Research On A ‘Quiet Little Book’ That Became An Immediate Sensation
Lisa Taddeo thinks her success is partially luck, and partially that she really digs into the nuances of women’s desire, and their relationships with men, at least before the Weinstein scandal broke. – The Guardian (UK)
Hundreds Of Architects, Designers, And Engineers Work On This Venice
It’s a candy Venice. A Venice of candy and gingerbread, royal icing (“basically like glue”) and buttercream for decoration. And when roofs collapse? The teams soldier, or solder (with buttercream), on. – NPR
Little Women, The Book, Was Radical And Feminist In Its Day
And Greta Gerwig’s new movie version of it makes an attempt to reflect that. “We may these days … be surrounded by books containing extraordinary girls – Lyra, Hermione, Katniss – but it is striking that they are exceptions, and often alone; groups of girls in, say, the Gossip Girl books are toxic and destructive. Little Women is about ‘a world of women, of value in and of itself.’ It is also, Gerwig has said, ‘one of the few books about childhood that isn’t about escape. There is bravery, but it’s a hero’s journey contained inside the home.'” – The Guardian (UK)
René Auberjonois, ‘Star Trek’ and ‘MASH’ and ‘Benson’ Actor, Has Died At 79
Auberjonois – Father Mulcahy in the 1970 movie M.A.S.H., iconic chief of staff in the 1980s sitcom Benson, and Odo in the 1990s show Star Trek: Deep Space 9 – was also a stage star who earned a Tony for best actor, playing opposite Katherine Hepburn. “Much of his later career was spent doing voice-overs for animation, most memorably as the French chef who sings the love song to fish-killing, “Les Poissons” in Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989)- The Washington Post
Teenager Admits Attempted Murder In Throwing Boy From Tate Modern Balcony
The now-18-year-old said he did it because “he had to prove a point ‘to every idiot’ who said he had no mental health problems, asking police if it was going to be on the news.” – BBC
Trying To Leap The Three Big Arts Barriers With A Dance Company In San Diego
Peter Kalivas says his PGK Dance Project, begun 25 years ago while he was working as a professional dancer in Munich, “must always be attempting to resolve the three main barriers the professional arts constantly face: affordability, accessibility and relevance.” – San Diego Union-Tribune
Why Hollywood Is Obsessed With De-Aging Its Stars
This isn’t the why, but a result: “Guy Williams and his fellow visual-effects artists have spent so much time staring at Will Smith’s face, they’ve practically memorized his every pore. ‘We joke sometimes that we probably know his face better than his wife does,’ Williams told me in September, laughing. ‘I can tell you exactly how he forms a smile. I can even tell you the 12 different flavors of Will Smith’s smile and the subtleties of each one. It gets pretty obnoxious.'” Indeed. – The Atlantic