At the Guardian, Alain de Botton, author of the forthcoming Religion for Atheists, considers whether “museums of art are our new churches” and says “modern museums of art fail to tell people directly why art matters.”
Why Art Matters
Perennial Errata
The New York Times issues a correction note for something they’ve been messing up for 25 years.
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Pathological Point-Making
Recommended Reading: Vinson Cunningham at The New Yorker on what makes an essay “American.”
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OWS Drummers Quiet Down
Last night at the General Assembly, the working group of drummers, Pulse, in a spirit of conciliation and generosity, brought forward a proposal to limit their drumming from 12 to 2 and 4 to 6 pm only.
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Dear Jeeves
“The late 1920s found him in Hollywood (‘This place is loathsome’) drowning, stingless, in MGM honey, while doing hack work on a silly Marion Davies vehicle. His descriptions of reptilian studio fauna make for delicious reading.” At The Daily Beast, a look at P.G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters.
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Chicken or Hen?
“Katrina Dodson has spent more time thinking about the word ‘chicken’ than you have spent thinking about anything.” The Stranger sits down with Katrina Dodson, translator of Clarice Lispector’s The Complete Stories. Pair with Dodson’s Year in Reading.
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Jenny Diski In Memoriam
“On the outside, she was immaculately poised, always elegantly dressed, with perfectly cut, silver hair; witty, brilliant company, properly opinionated, impatient with compromise or cant, what the book blurbs called ‘fiercely intelligent.’ But this came at a cost.” Jenny Diski‘s husband, the poet Ian Patterson, remembers his wife for The Guardian.
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A Reader’s Manifesto
This week in book-related comics: “A Reader’s Manifesto” by Grant Snider, via Electric Literature.