It has made available more than 100,000 of the “top” books worldwide to readers. “It should not be important whether you are a member of an institution and whether you live in a city with bookstores and libraries in order to have access to books. We still approach the book depending on where we are and which institution we belong to. We still read what others dictate to us rather than what we find ourselves. There is still a very small number of writers who get a chance to publish. When the books are opened in a digital format, it creates new opportunities that will maximize every evolving society.
Tag: 12.06.16
Sure, You Can Have Your End-Of-Year Best Book Lists, But What About NPR’s Bizarrely Great Book Concierge?
Pick your desire – “eye-opening reads” that are “for art-lovers” – and click the buttons, and voila! The app, now in its fourth iteration, provides hours of fun and small quibbles with the creators – and a lot of opportunities to catch up on books readers had missed this year.
Color? What’s That? Neuroscience Is On The Case
“Colors are something we experience, individually and collectively. But without our experience of color, science would have no reason to suspect its existence. There would just be fifty shades, or more likely fifty thousand shades, of electromagnetic waves. That is why even a Nobel Prize-winning biologist like Gerald Edelman tells us that reality is actually colorless; because he takes reality to be what science tells us it is, not what he experiences as an individual.”
‘Dangerous Curves’ – Plus-Size Pole Dancers
Filmmaker and writer Merete Mueller introduces her 7½-minute documentary about Roslyn Mays and the workshops she teaches. (video)
Watchlist Redux Augments Professor Watchlist With Others Who Should Be On It – Like Socrates, Jefferson, And Jesus
“Redux includes two lists of radical thinkers: those of the past and present, respectively. The past list includes blurbs about influential thinkers from Socrates to Thomas Jefferson to Anna J. Cooper to Alan Turing, with some perhaps unexpected entries. An entry on Jesus of Nazareth, for example, reads, ‘Notorious radical and troublemaker, taught the poor, executed by the state.'”
What Can Artists Do To Effectively Oppose Trump? Not Much – But That’s Not Really Their Job
Adam Kirsch: “One illusion that will be particularly painful to part with is the idea that high culture and the arts have any effective power in American life. … The central role that writers and artists have played in public debate and popular culture is a thing of the past, but that role was always secondary to their real purpose.”
We Will Not Extradite Roman Polanski, Rules Poland’s Supreme Court
The current Polish government had asked the court to allow the extradition of the director (who is a dual citizen of Poland and France) to the U.S. over his notorious statutory rape charge from the 1970s.
#BoycottHamilton, Eh? The Show Just Sold $3.3M Of Tickets In One Week
“Nothing like a boycott promoted by conservative Republicans to send the Broadway grosses soaring.”
Golden Statue Of ‘King Bibi’ Is Erected, Argued About, And Pulled Down In Tel Aviv
“‘In the social media, there have been tens of thousands of comments about ‘King Bibi’,’ [sculptor Itay] Zalait said on Army Radio when asked what had inspired him to create the statue. ‘I simply made it a reality and put it in its deserved place, the Kings of Israel Square.'”
The Forgotten Hero Of Balanchine’s ‘Nutcracker’ Is The Title Role
Marina Harss looks at the special qualities of this first star part for young male dancers, and she talks to a 12-year-old who’s sharing the role at New York City Ballet this year.