“I can hear the worldwide scream go up: ‘But we’re entitled to anonymity on the Internet!’ Really? Are you? Why do you think that? … [In] the physical world we are implicitly comfortable with the notion that there are certain places we’re not allowed to go without identifying ourselves.”
Tag: 01.30.10
Countless Authors Are Forbidden In Texas Prisons
“Novels by National Book Award winners Pete Dexter, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Proulx and William T. Vollmann have been banned in recent years. Award finalists Katherine Dunn and Barry Hannah are on the Texas no-read list, too, as are Pulitzer Prize winners Alice Walker, Robert Penn Warren and John Updike.”
How The Iliad Is Reflected In Wars Throughout History
Alexander the Great “esteemed it a perfect portable treasure of all military virtue and knowledge.” The death of Gorgythion prefigures the poppies of Flanders Field. West Point cadets study the epic. The scene of Achilles dragging Hector’s body from a chariot has been replayed in Mogadishu and Fallujah. There’s even “spin”: a 1st-century historian argued that Homer “suppressed the truth,” which was that the Greeks lost.
Dante’s Inferno, The Video Game
“It’s true. Inferno is now a video game, with a brawny, armor-clad Dante as its protagonist. … [The] game’s creators say there’s an audience for it. Their research showed that most people had heard of Inferno but few knew what it was about. This, they say, gave them license to make a few improvements.”
At 80, Gillian Ayres Muses On The Artist’s Life
“In a funny way, in retrospect, should artists have all these things, marriages and children?” the painter asks. “It’s a big bloody question anyway. Possibly not. A lot of artists don’t.”
The New Art Buyers
“An influx of collectors from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are branching out to seek artists from the 20th century Western canon, such as Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin and Edgar Degas.”
Amazon Drops Macmillan Books Over Pricing Dispute
“A person in the industry with knowledge of the dispute, which has been brewing for a year, said Amazon was expressing its strong disagreement by temporarily removing Macmillan books. … Macmillan, like other publishers, has asked Amazon to raise the price of e-books to around $15 from $9.99.”
Pasadena Playhouse To Close Down
“The Pasadena Playhouse will close Feb. 7 after the final performance of its current show, Camelot, as leaders of the 90-year-old landmark theater search for ways out of serious financial difficulties. … [The] playhouse is essentially out of cash and faces more than $500,000 in immediate bills, as well as payments on more than $1.5 million in bank loans and other debts.”
The Problem With Mourning J.D. Salinger
“[When] the news came this week … it was hard to know how to react. How can you grieve for a writer who has been, for all practical purposes, dead for half a century – one defined by his refusal to publish or even to appear in public?”
The World’s Most Depressing New Opera, Now Playing In Tel Aviv
“Let’s see, now: In the first part of the opera a blood-soaked violinist dies from gunshot wounds and a child’s father is casually murdered by a self-centred, red-haired woman provocatively dressed in matching lingerie.” And there are three parts left to go. This is The Child’s Dream, which composer Gil Shohat insists is not a Holocaust story.