Jorge Louis Borges’s suggestions for the thirty-three books to begin his famed Library of Babel includes works by Oscar Wilde, Franz Kafka, and even Borges himself–and, maddeningly, no women. Nothing against Borges, but you may want to spend some time with our own slightly more diverse Year in Reading series for a bit more variety.
Borges’s Best-Of
Fail Better
●
●
[Video Goes Here]
“We’re seeing a year-on-year decline of text … If I was having a bet I’d say: video, video, video.” Nicola Mendelsohn, head of Facebook’s European, Middle Eastern, and African regions, believes that the written word is going the way of the dodo.
“Filmmaking is an adventure. Treat it as such.”
Beasts of the Southern Wild director Benh Zeitlin discusses the lessons he’s learned over the past year. He also gives a shout out to Underground, a film by Serbian director Emir Kusturica. Elsewhere, Zeitlin shares some of the music, books, and movies he’s been enjoying of late.
Reactive Female Characters
Melissa Hillman, the artistic director at Berkeley’s Impact Theatre, explains “A Common Problem [She Sees] In Plays By Women Playwrights. (It’s Not What You Think.)”
●
●
Rudyard the Rebel
Remember the Rudyard Kipling poem where he says the British government should be scalped? We don’t either. However, a forthcoming book of lost Kipling poems, 100 Poems: Old and New, shows his anti-establishment side. An excerpt from the aforementioned poem, “Laudatores Actoris Empti:” “Come, let us lightly scalp the brood / Of ‘educated middle classes’ / Who, much perplexed with ‘views’ and ‘goals’ / Now govern London – and our souls”