The meteoric rise of the author of The Selling of the President 1968, the split with his family (“I get off the plane after doing Merv Griffin and the Tonight Show and have to leave for Paris and your mother tells me I need to take out the trash”), the intermittent happy visits, and the long, depressive, alcohol-fueled decline.
Tag: 07.26.16
Big Tech Killed Bookstore Chains – And It’s Saving Indie Bookstores
“It’s a bit of tech innovators being hoisted by their own petard: the massive drop in cost in back-office software and computers has benefitted small stores as much as a large ones. It costs much less now to do much more than a decade [ago], reducing overhead and improving efficiency.”
‘Opera Has Broken Free Of The Stage’ – What We Learned At The First New York Opera Fest
“Over the course of the festival, we attended 14 productions out of the more than 25 presented, taking us to four out of five boroughs, from a Harlem school to a West Village townhouse to a basketball court in Brooklyn. Along the way we saw works presented in unconventional venues and on screens; discovered lesser-known and brand new works; and witnessed innovative approaches to reaching new audiences. Here is what we learned.”
The ‘Zines Of Renaissance England
“From the 15th century onward, everyday English people passed broadsides around, sang their songs, and gossiped about the news contained within. Unlike books or early newspapers, broadsides and pamphlets were not curated nor intended for a specific, upper-class audience. This early form of journalism and storytelling was sold on the cheap, and many took no time at all to read.”
The Latest Trend In LGBT Fiction: Gay Shame
“Shame informs much of the work of our latter-day gay novelists, offered as an antidote to our overriding gay culture that recognizes ‘pride’ as the core (and perhaps only) important expression of gayness today. The literary projects offered by [Hanya] Yanagihara and [Garth] Greenwell are cultural counterpoints to gay pride, attempts to show how shame – just as much as pride, if not more – still meaningfully forms part of the terrain of gay life, and must be acknowledged as such.”
Why Are Zombies Scary? It’s Not Because They Want To Eat Your Brains, Even Metaphorically
“Zombies belong to the realm of horror stories that reappear over and over throughout history – from ancient Mesopotamia to modern-day sci-fi – because they raise a more terrifying fear than merely that of a gory death: the threat of eternal life.”
The Big Plans For Cambodia’s Floating Arts Center
“The arts are an integral part of the fabric of [Phnom Penh], but, most days, art isn’t a major priority for those scraping by in one of the world’s poorest countries. That’s just one reason why The Boat is so important.”
We Need To Think About Anger – And Philosophy Can (Really!) Help Us Do It
Martha Nussbaum looks at two of anger’s main drivers, loss of status and the desire for payback, and looks to Aristotle and Nelson Mandela for examples of how to deal with them.
Power Of Positive Thinking? Researchers Say Maybe Not So Much
“Indulging in undirected positive flights of fancy isn’t always in our interest. Positive thinking can make us feel better in the short term, but over the long term it saps our motivation, preventing us from achieving our wishes and goals, and leaving us feeling frustrated, stymied and stuck.”
Musicians Complain Politicians Don’t Have Permission To Use Their Music (But Here’s Why They Won’t Sue)
A campaign may obtain “public performance” licenses from performing rights organizations like ASCAP or BMI, which typically allows for the use of whatever songs are in their catalogs. Trump’s campaign very well may have secured such licenses to play songs on the trail.