Elias Canetti is regarded by many as one of the century’s most distinguished writers. At least since he was awarded the Nobel Prize, in 1981, he has been regularly compared, if not to Proust or Joyce or Mann, then certainly to his Viennese brethren Robert Musil and Hermann Broch. Yet one suspects that, in America at leasts Canetti’s works have been rather more respected than read. This is particularly true in the case of the two long and difficult books upon which his reputation mainly rests: Auto-da-Fé (1935), his first and only novel, and Crowds and Power (1960), the meticulously idiosyncratic contribution to social theory that he considers his major work. -
Roger Kimball [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Dec 13, 2011 -
13 comments
All told, Updike has published more than a million words on books. ... In Picked-up Pieces (1975), Updike’s second collection of essays, he lists his rules for reviewing... Without coyness, Updike renders a stern judgment based on telling quotation. He builds toward his findings in plain sight, earning him an authority that is based on his presentation of a plausible case. [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Dec 11, 2011 -
6 comments
The 2011
Edublog Awards
are on. The nominee lists provide rich resources for everyone, perhaps most especially in the
free web tool category. A personal selection:
Online Convert (free online conversion of dozens of video formats),
GeoTrio and
TripLine (recorded tours around the world),
CorkboardMe and
LinoIt (online, shared pibboards),
Cover It Live (online event presentation) and
A Google A Day (daily questions and puzzles, presented by Google
(previously)). For kids, there’s
Artsonia (the world’s largest children’s arts museum)
Tarheel Reader (illustrated readers for multiple platforms) and
SweetSearch (a search engine for students),along with much, much more.
[more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul
on Dec 5, 2011 -
1 comment
"It was no accident that arts funding was once again brought to national attention with the exhibit Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. Since the 80s, the enemies of the NEA have not been those with differences of opinion about what art should be supported or how. Instead they oppose any support at all for art of any kind."
Hide/Seek, Culture Wars and the History of the NEA (NSFW, art)
posted by The Whelk
on Nov 1, 2011 -
115 comments
The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program manages information about hundreds of murals that have made Philadelphia famous.
Muralfarm.org is the site where information about the growing body of public art created by the Mural Arts Program has been planted. Pictures and detailed information about murals can be searched by artist, theme, date, location, neighborhood, and other key terms.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Oct 7, 2011 -
12 comments
They think of me as a scholar, an intellectual, a pen-pusher. And I am none of them. When I write, my fingers get covered not in ink but in blood. I think I am nothing more than this: an undaunted soul. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Nov 24, 2010 -
9 comments
This week, the world will finally get its first look at Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
. But the most expensive musical in Broadway history has already had an epic run—battling bankruptcy, broken wrists, unruly technology, and one comic villain disguised as a Post columnist. And at the center of it all, perched over her “God mike,” is the relentless and inventive Julie Taymor. (previously)
posted by Joe Beese
on Nov 23, 2010 -
49 comments
Spike Magazine offers up a splendid enchanting
598 page behometh anthology of interviews, features and book reviews taken from the last 15 years of this wonderfully eclectic magazine (
Direct PDF /
Zip) . Nicely formatted and with enough content to keep even the most avid britlit fan happy. Highlights include interviews with (among many others)
Will Self (p451,460,464,467) ,
JG Ballard (p27,32,35, 39),
Iain Banks (p54),
Nick Hornby(p276). Enjoy.
posted by numberstation
on Oct 22, 2010 -
5 comments
frontsection.net is a tasteful, politically right-on and truly curatorial take on aggregating web content. Careful, combined with an MF habit, this is going to eat up
a lot of hours. Although the site is MetaFilter-inspired, all links are the fruit of one intrepid reader whose work, it must be admitted, sometimes grinds to a halt for up to a week at a time.
posted by Roachbeard
on Aug 14, 2010 -
36 comments
Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and moving case for creating an education system that nurtures
(rather than undermines) creativity. (c. 2007 SLYT TED talk)
posted by snsranch
on Apr 15, 2010 -
5 comments
Djuna Barnes (12 June, 1892 – 18 June, 1982) was an American writer who played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and 30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens. Her novel Nightwood became a cult work of modern fiction, helped by an introduction by T. S. Eliot. It stands out today for its portrayal of lesbian themes and its distinctive writing style. -
Wikipedia [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Jun 10, 2009 -
18 comments
Circuits are flipping on in the
nation's attic. A couple of weeks ago,
31 "digerati" -- like
Clay Shirky,
Chris Anderson, and
George Oates --
dropped in to the Smithsonian Institution for the invitation-only conference
"Smithsonian 2.0: A Gathering to Re-imagine the Smithsonian in the Digital Age".
Dan Cohen of the
Center for History and New Media provides
a great summary (and continues to pose provocative questions) on his own blog. Those whose invitations were somehow lost in the mail can play fly-on-the-wall by
watching the keynotes, paging through the
Flickr pool of envymaking glimpses of their behind-the-scenes lab and collections tours, reading the
blog (where Bruce Wyman of the Denver Art Museum lays out
a succinct road map for museums using social media), and poking around in the SI's
website gallery. Want to cheer on the USA's favorite 163-year-old
"Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge" without taking the trip to DC? Thanks to their recent efforts, you can now follow the SI on
Twitter, listen to its
podcasts, watch its
YouTube channel, visit the
Latino Virtual Museum in Second Life, or use the
FaceBook gifts page to send your best friends their very own pair of Dorothy's
ruby slippers,
Hope diamond,
Negro Leagues baseball, or
coelocanth.
posted by Miko
on Feb 27, 2009 -
13 comments
The
Academy of Achievement brings students face-to-face with the extraordinary leaders, thinkers and pioneers who have shaped our world. Through profiles, biographies, and interviews Achievers in
The Arts,
Business,
Public Service,
Science, and
Sports teach us how the Academy's core values of
passion,
vision,
preparation,
courage,
perseverance, and
integrity can, and will, lead to success.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Jan 1, 2009 -
6 comments
Until 400 years ago, the Ainu controlled Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's four main islands. Today they are a small minority group of Japan. They are a hunting and fishing people whose origins remain in dispute.
Long before the people who would come to be known as "the Japanese" completed their migrations from the Asia mainland, the islands of Japan were already inhabited by a race of people known as the Ainu ("human").
On this northernmost island, (Hokkaido), in the "snow
country," there still may be found remnants of this once proud and vigorous people who roamed the Japan islands long before the Japanese themselves arrived.
More links inside [more inside]
posted by dawson
on Jun 6, 2008 -
35 comments
Brilliant Women: The Blue Stocking Circle was a group of intellectuals with a strong desire to discuss, analyze, and examine the social, political, and educational problems of the day Mostly female intellectuals, but they included many prominent men as well.
They assembled in the London homes of literary hostesses such as Elizabeth Montagu, Frances Boscawen and Elizabeth Vesey in the 1750s form the nucleus of the exhibition. .... At first, all the party-goers were nicknamed blues, but from the 1770s, the "bluestocking" tag was applied to the women members in particular. By the time of Montagu's death in 1800, any female intellectual might be labelled a bluestocking, whether or not she could claim a link to the original circle.
posted by caddis
on Mar 21, 2008 -
10 comments
