You should read this for 7/26/2021: Art, Music, and Film ‘Boundless invention’: British Museum to show more than 100 unseen Hokusai works At some point, possibly in the 1840s when he would have been in his 80s, Hokusai decided to embark on a project titled The Great Picture Book of Everything for which he let his imagination run wild. His idea was to present vignettes from Buddhist India, ancient China and the natural world. It was never published so the drawings were instead put in a box and have not been seen publicly since. Books, Libraries, Writing, and Language Good…

You should read this for 7/11/2021: Books, Libraries, Writing, and Language Queer readings of The Lord of the Rings are not accidents There Is No Debate Over Critical Race Theory “Pundits and politicians have created their own definition for the term, and then set about attacking it.” The United States is not in the midst of a “culture war” over race and racism. The animating force of our current conflict is not our differing values, beliefs, moral codes, or practices. The American people aren’t divided. The American people are being divided. Republican operatives have buried the actual definition of critical…

You should read this for 7/31/2021: Art, Music, and Film The mystery of the Georgian papier-mache horse – in pictures Vija Skangale, a curator, grew up in Tbilisi, Georgia, in the 1980s, and now lives in London. One day, looking through childhood photos, she found an image of her four-year-old self atop a papier-mache horse at the local zoo. “All my Tbilisi friends have a similar photo,” she says, “but I knew nothing about the photographer.” So she posted on social media and was overwhelmed by the response. Books, Libraries, Writing, and Language I was born in poverty in Appalachia….

You should read this for 6/26/2022: Books, Libraries, Writing, and Language Coronavirus | COVID-19 ‘Are you kidding me?’ Fauci responds to rightwing attacks over emails In his interview with the Times, Fauci pushed back. “It is essential as a scientist that you evolve your opinion and your recommendations based on the data as it evolves,” he said. “… And that’s the reason why I say people who then criticise me about that are actually criticising science.” He added: “The people who are giving the ad hominems are saying, ‘Ah, Fauci misled us. First he said no masks, then he said…

You should read this for 6/19/2022: Art, Music, and Film George Oates Returns to Revitalize the Flickr Commons Books, Libraries, Writing, and Language Top 10 novels told in a single day “From James Joyce and Virginia Woolf to Nicholson Baker, the ‘circadian novel’ can pack lifetimes of experience into 24 hours” Oxford University Press to end centuries of tradition by closing its printing arm Oxford University’s right to print books was first recognised in 1586, in a decree from the Star Chamber. But the centuries-old printing history of Oxford University Press will end this summer, after the publishing house announced…

You should read this for 6/6/2021: Art, Music, and Film H/T Kira Cee: That Fat, Jolly Fella Isn’t Buddha Biden Begins ‘I’m a car guy’: Biden zips around in electric Ford truck to boost clean-energy agenda The day revealed Biden not so much in rare form but in his truest form. His entire life has been crafted, in many ways, around cars. The affection for automobiles is as much a part of Biden as his Irishness and his love of ice cream, and it’s one that has deepened over the years. The event on Tuesday also married that longtime love…

You should read this for 5/08/2021: I’m still on hiatus, but managed to accumulate a short list of links. Art, Music, and Film Master of Catherine of Cleves: Acquisition of a Previously Unknown Illumination Books, Libraries, Writing, and Language The Philip Roth biography is canceled, Mike Pence’s book could be next — and publishing may never be the same It’s tempting to see this as just another isolated incident — like Grand Central’s decision not to publish Woody Allen’s memoir in 2020 or Threshold’s decision to drop Milo Yiannopoulos’s book in 2017. But I think this week marks a sea…

I’m taking a bit of a hiatus from regular posting to work on other writing. I may very well post a few things here, but I’m not going to be keeping a weekly schedule. Science and Nature Groundbreaking effort launched to decode whale language On a crisp spring morning in 2008, Shane Gero overheard a pair of whales having a chat. Gero, a Canadian biologist, had been tracking sperm whales off the Caribbean island nation of Dominica when two males, babies from the same family, popped up not far from his boat. The animals, nicknamed Drop and Doublebend, nuzzled their…

You should read this for 4/17/2021: Art, Music, and Film Beeswing by Richard Thompson review – beyond Fairport Convention Joss Whedon’s ‘The Nevers’ is a weak remix of his formerly good ideas With the latest application of his style, call it the Nevers configuration, it’s clear that Whedon has less of a creative signature and more of a single notebook page of ideas he’s been using since the late ’90s. Women take the floor: an exhibition that shifts the male gaze of art history Biden Begins A pair of misleading GOP attacks on Biden’s infrastructure plan In 2018, the Treasury…

You should read this for 4/10/2021: Art, Music, and Film ‘Some kind of modern day western’: inside the world of concrete cowboys Concrete Cowboy, which premiered last year at the Toronto film festival and is now available on Netflix, is a gritty drama about a father-son relationship set around the Fletcher Street Stables, one of the first stables in inner-city Philadelphia and now among the last. It dates back more than a century to when horse-drawn wagons delivered produce, laundry and milk. That era drew to a close in the late 1950s when cars and trucks took over but the…