Two months ago, a bowl sold at auction for $2,225,000. It is an unremarkable bowl in some ways: Only five inches in diameter, to the untrained eye it looks like the kind of vessel that would contain lemon drops on a grandmother’s coffee table. Fortunately, there are trained eyes. It is actually a rare, thousand-year-old specimen of pottery from the Song dynasty in China. The person who sold it had bought it for $3 at a yard sale in 2007…..
Art Daily
- Art Basel highlights Hong Kong's new status as arts hub with an array of international artThe first Art Basel fair to be hosted by Hong Kong boasts a prestigious array of international art, highlighting the city's new role as a global arts hub amid an explosion of personal wealth in mainland China. The four-day annual show is the world's premier art fair and has until now only been held in Switzerland and the United States. On Wednesday […]
- Move over Pompeii - British Museum does fine dining Roman Britain style in new displayThe Mildenhall Treasure is Britains finest late Roman silver dining service, and the Great Dish is its magnificent centrepiece. Dating to the fourth century, it is an enormous disc of pure silver, over 60cm in diameter and over 8kg in weight. It shows a Bacchic revel, the god of wine and his entourage drinking, dancing and generally making merry, and is a m […]
- The Whitney presents first in-depth study of Edward Hopper's working processThis spring, the Whitney Museum celebrates Edward Hoppers achievements as a draftsman in the first major museum exhibition to focus on the artists drawings and working process. Along with many of his most iconic paintings, the exhibition features more than 200 drawings, the most extensive presentation to date of Hoppers achievement in this medium, pairing […]
- New York Public Library announces agreement to display original copy of the Bill of RightsMembers of the public in both New York City and Pennsylvania will soon get to see The New York Public Librarys original copy of the Bill of Rights, which will be exhibited for the first time in decades. The Library and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania today announced an agreement to share display of the national treasure, which has been preserved in The New […]
- Never-before-seen on the international auction market, Matta's "Prisoner of Light" leads Christie's saleOn May 29 and 30, Christies Latin American Sale will offer an outstanding selection of over 300 lots from some of the regions most prominent modern and contemporary masters. The two-day auction includes esteemed private collections and an exceptional offering of paintings and sculpture from important Latin American artists such as Fernando Botero, Leonora […]
The Art Newspaper
- German shipper jailed by Chinese returns homeThe German art shipper who was jailed for 100 days by Chinese authorities on suspicion of art smuggling has left China, although the legal proceedings against him are still ongoing. Nils Jennrich, the Beijing-based general manager of Integrated Fine... […]
- Caligula reunited with his bargesA rare and recently restored 2.5m-high marble statue of the Roman Emperor Caligula (who reigned from AD37-AD41) is due to go on display in June at the Museo delle Navi Romane di Nemi—Italy’s popular ancient Roman ship museum. The Italian Guardia... […]
- Where next for Hong Kong, Asia’s art hub?As the Art Basel Hong Kong fair opens its doors to invited guests, there is no doubt that, culturally speaking, the Hong Kong we see today is very different from the place that fair impresario Tim Etchells visited, for the first time, in 2006.... […]
- Ripple effect of record sales in New YorkChristie’s broke the record for the highest amount raised in one auction last week when its contemporary and Modern sale in New York raised $495m. Big-ticket items included Roy Lichtenstein’s Woman with Flowered Hat, 1963, (detail, below) bought for... […]
- Change of tack by Jockey ClubThe project to transform the former Central Police Station into a cultural hub for Hong Kong by 2015 has a new vision for its contemporary art programme. A call has gone out for candidates to organise the programme. Charles Saumarez Smith, the... […]
Latest Story
The Prix Découvertes
| prixdecouvertes@rfi.fr | |
| PRIX DÉCOUVERTES RFI 2013 | |
| Press release, May 2nd, 2013
PRIX DÉCOUVERTES RFI 2013 Call for applications The call for applications for the Prix Découvertes RFI 2013 has just been launched. The contest is open to all professional African and Indian Ocean singers or bands. In addition to a 10,000 Euro prize, the winner will receive a long tour in Africa as well as a concert in Paris. The deadline for submissions is June 15th, 2013. All artists must have a website or a profile on a social networking site on which a minimum of four music tracks are available for listening. The contest rules and all relevant information can be found online: http://www.prixdecouvertes.com/en/registration Since 1981, the Prix Découvertes RFI is a yearly opportunity to showcase Africa’s new musical talents. Over the years, the Award has contributed to the launching of numerous artists who have since gone on to reach an international audience: Tiken Jah Fakoly, Amadou et Mariam, Rokia Traoré, Didier Awadi… Each year, a prominent figure presides over the Award’s jury of professionals. From Jacob Desvarieux to Youssou N’Dour, from Angélique Kidjo to Passi, the support and the experience of the Award’s chairs have contributed to its distinction. RFI and its partners provide the winner with a promotion package which includes media coverage on the radio, on the Internet and during music festivals. The Prix Découvertes RFI is organized in partnership with FRANCE 24, Sacem, Institut français, Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie and Deezer. Press Contact: Henri Maus, Press Agent |
The Great Gatsby review
…..Having watched this fantastically unthinking and heavy-handed adaptation, the opening gala of this year’s Cannes festival, I feel the only way to make it less subtle would be to let Michael Bay direct it. As it is, the task has fallen to Baz Luhrmann, the director of Moulin Rouge! and Australia, a man who can’t see a nuance without calling security for it to be thrown off his set…..
The Encyclopedic Palace, Venice
The Venice Biennale
The 55th International Art Exhibition titled Il Palazzo Enciclopedico (The Encyclopedic Palace), curated by Massimiliano Gioni and organized by la Biennale di Venezia chaired by Paolo Baratta, is opening to the public from Saturday 1st June to Sunday 24th November 2013 at the Giardini and at the Arsenale. The preview will be held on 29th, 30th and 31st May. The award ceremony and the inauguration will take place on Saturday 1st June…..
The Humanities Project
A panel of experts met Tuesday in front of a capacity crowd at Radcliffe Gymnasium. “The Humanities and the Future of the University,” convened by the Mahindra Humanities Center and funded by the Office of the President, explored ways of reviving interest in the reflexive and analytical disciplines that make up humanistic study.
In 1979, federal grants for science were worth five times those for the humanities. By 1998, 33 times more. In 2011, 200 times more.
Meanwhile, the number of American bachelor’s degrees in disciplines such as language, history, and the classics has been declining for decades — from 14 percent in 1966 to 7 percent in 2010. At Harvard College, the trend is the same, though less steep: 17 percent of students are humanities concentrators today, down from 21 percent about a decade ago.
Interest in humanities degrees is declining according to other measures, too. For instance, the number of incoming freshmen at Harvard who say they will concentrate in the humanities drops 57 percent by the end of their third semester…..
John Keats
Oh, for ten years, that I may overwhelm / Myself in poesy.
So wrote the author of “Sleep and Poetry,” composed in late 1816. Alas, John Keats was allowed only half that time, dying at the age of 25 in 1821.
Is there any more affecting story than his in the annals of English literature? Orphaned at a young age, barely five feet tall (and sensitive about it), and raggedly educated, Keats was nonetheless naturally gregarious and fond of “women, wine, and snuff.” A Londoner through and through, he loved the theater, enjoyed watching boxing matches, and once spent an evening cutting cards for half guineas….
What big data will never explain
“She told him that she loves me, which is an important data point.” I overheard those words a few months ago, and they stopped me in my tracks. I did not know the smitten and empirical young man who spoke them well enough to offer a correction of his way of talking about desire, but I was pleased to have stumbled upon such a blunt formulation of one of the shibboleths of the day. I refer to the messianic conception of data, or Big Data. (It always sounds to me like a tragic bully out of Tennessee Williams: “Big Data’s going to live!”) What the young man was doing was datafying. I take the term from Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier, whose book Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, is a useful if propagandistic introduction to the digital world’s latest instrument of salvation…..
The Dairy Art Centre, Bloomsbury, London
Art collectors Frank Cohen and Nicolai Frahm on their new project.
Take two art collectors, a disused milk depot in Bloomsbury, and just add artists. Emma Crichton-Miller gets a taste of what’s in store at the Dairy.
This spring, in London, a new not-for-profit art space opens in a former Express Dairies milk depot. It is the brainchild of contemporary art collector Frank Cohen and art consultant and collector Nicolai Frahm. Manchester-based Cohen, dubbed ‘the Saatchi of the North’,….
Advice for Writers and Artists
The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook, part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc has become the authoritative resource for writers over the past 100 years. Now, based on customer demand, they have expanded this brand to help aspiring writers get their book published through the introduction of writers’ services.
Harnessing their century-long experience, they have devised a suite of online and offline services that give you access to the right expert at precisely the right moment in the evolution of your work.
http://www.writersandartists.co.uk/advice
Catherine Malabou
Philosophy: Pushing the Limits Series: An Interview with Catherine Malabou (audio)
Professor Catherine Malabou graduated from the Ecole Normale Superieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines (Fontenay-Saint-Cloud). Her agregation and doctorate were obtained, under the supervision of Jacques Derridaand Jean-Luc Marion, from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Her dissertation became the book, L’Avenir de Hegel: Plasticité, Temporalité, Dialectique (1996)….
Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam to reopen
The grand refurbishment of the Dutch national museum of art and history, the Rijksmuseum – home to thousands of masterpieces including that greatest of Rembrandts, The Night Watch – started life as a millennium project.
In the event, the museum closed its doors in 2003 and was due to reopen by 2006. But, dogged by innumerable delays, including a catastrophic tendering process, problems with asbestos and protests by cycling campaigners, it has been shut for a decade, losing an exhausted director along the way.
Now, finally, the €375m (£318m) overhaul is virtually complete and – amid huge national anticipation and excitement – the museum is due to reopen its doors to the public on 13 April, after an inauguration by Queen Beatrix, one of her last engagements before she abdicates at the end of the month. In a new era of economic uncertainty, and spending cuts to Dutch culture, the project feels like it will be one of the last of its kind for many years…..
David Bowie at the V&A
“David Bowie is”: the title is an unfinished sentence, which gives the verb a subject but no object, and it suggests that Bowie is everything and perhaps nothing, a whirligig of dressed-up personae, not a person. To begin with, he isn’t even David Bowie. He was born David Jones, then renamed by a bossy manager. But is he Bowie, like the knife, or should his adopted surname be pronounced Boughie, like the branch? Or is any earthly appellation just an alias for a man – if he is one, since he always enjoyed flaunting his androgyny – who once announced: “I am a cyborg”?….
Expedition Audio
Expedition Audio makes it easy to discover new recordings, listen to samples, share recommended music with your social network, and make better-informed purchase decisions, all while guaranteeing every recording.
http://www.expeditionaudio.com/
Fast Fashion
This video highlights the amount of waste retailers produce and ways they are changing practices. Our post with the video is located on OnlineMBA.com.
‘Fast Fashion’ refers to clothing and accessories that are designed to reflect current industry trends, yet produced using less expensive materials to ensure a low price tag. For the last two decades, clothing retailers like H&M, Zara, and Forever 21 have popularized Fast Fashion among everyday consumers. However, not everyone is a huge fan of the trend.
Many designers, for instance, have complained that Fast Fashion has reduced conceptual originality within the clothing industry in order to produce a higher volume of garments and accessories. Zara, for example, churns out 10,000 new items every year; most boutique designers, by comparison, release between 50 and 100 pieces.
The Fast Fashion trend has also led to environmental concerns. Every year, the clothing industry produces 2 million tons of waste, emits 2.1 million tons of carbon dioxide, and uses 70 million tons of water; these figures have significantly risen in the years since Fast Fashion became a retailing standard. To make matters worse, the quality of these garments is typically so low that most are discarded or donated to charity by the wearer within two years of the original purchase.
Roughly 300 retailers have signed on to the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan (SCAP), a collective that aims to reduce wastefulness in the fashion industry. SCAP seeks to produce and sell clothing without producing undesirable environmental effects; another goal of the group is to exclusively limit international business deals and projects to countries that have established strict labor regulations.
Minute MBA
Art in the Ice Age
Figures up to 40,000 years old reveal how early man saw and stylised the world around him and put art before practical concerns.
As you turn the corner in the British Museum’s Reading Room gallery, you find yourself face to face with a bison. Ambling towards you, her head drifting to one side, she has come more than 2,500 kilometres, from Zaraysk in Russia – and it has taken her more than 20,000 years to get here…..
Artleaks exposes the culture scene’s ugly truths
Corruption, censorship, blackmail and exploitation usually refer to the world of business, rather than culture. But the founders of the online platform Artleaks say it’s time to break the silence.
Cultural institutions may take pride in marketing themselves as zones of creative freedom, a place to break rules, a space for critical inquiry – but a collective international platform for cultural workers has a different story to tell.
Taking inspiration from Wikileaks, Artsleaks was formed by a group of artists, curators and art historians and critics in 2011 to speak out against the appropriation of politically engaged culture and to expose instances of abuse and submit them to public inquiry. Its motto is: “It’s time to break the silence!”….
High culture and entertainment
In conversation with the sociologist Gilles Lipovetsky, novelist and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa discusses the relative merits of “high” and “mass” culture in the contemporary world and defends the ideas explored in his recent book La civilización del espectáculo.
Geoff Deyer
William Deresiewicz
Never mind the writing, as superb as it so often is: as agile, as subtle, as witty, as funny, as brilliantly insightful. Never mind the breadth—a book about jazz, a book about photography, a book about a film, a book about D.H. Lawrence, a set of travel pieces, a study of John Berger, a book about the apparatus of memory that surrounds the Great War, four novels, and a couple of bushels of journalism. What I really admire about Geoff Dyer’s work is Geoff Dyer. Here is a man who decided a long time ago that he was going to follow the muse of his own curiosity, let the rest of the world be damned, and by God, he’s made it stick. No institutions, no apologies. A freelance, a vagabond, an aesthete, a latter-day bohemian and man of letters: I call that courage. I also call it culture…..
A biography of Jacques Derrida
By Benoît Peeters
A sure sign of a compelling biography is when you throw the book down in disbelief: ‘So you mean shewas having an affair with him?!’ (I actually blurted this out, to the consternation of fellow train passengers.) I happened to know both of them. She was a German specialist who liked to have conversations about Kafka and Nietzsche. I used to play football with him. You’d think one of them might have mentioned it…..
An interview with playwright Tom Stoppard
Victoria Glendinning
Tom Stoppard turned 75 this summer. There is a line of his on several quotations websites: “I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity.” Does he still think that? He tells the strange story of how he wrote those words, some time in the late 1960s, on a dressing-room wall, backstage at the rock musical “Hair”, for a friend who was appearing in it. “And then, years and years later, I was sent a photo of the same words written on a signboard in Hawaii, and this was pre-Twitter. It’s like one of Richard Dawkins’s memes, a cultural gene which spreads.”
Back to the subject: “I don’t like getting old.” Tentatively, I suggest this may be because when we are old we don’t know any more how we seem to other people. “I don’t think I ever present myself to other people,” he says. “Most of us are impersonating a version of ourselves.” ….
The difference between knowledge and belief
With the discovery of the Higgs boson, the last gap in the “Standard Model” of physics has been filled. Martin Eiermann talked with the head of the CERN laboraties, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, about the future of physics, the value of diversity, and the difference between knowledge and belief…..
W. B. Yeats and magic
If the paramount project of W.B. Yeats’ professional life was the perfection of the art of poetry, it was intertwined with a personal preoccupation, the study and practice of magic— not in any metaphorical sense, but the dedicated pursuit of supernatural powers based upon the ancient traditions of alchemy and necromancy, which began in his youth and persisted to the end of his long life.
Yeats wrote frankly about his vocation as a magician in several memoirs and inA Vision, a dense astrological treatise he labored over for twenty years…..
Ludwig Wittgenstein on looking, not thinking
“Thinking in pictures,” Sigmund Freud once wrote, “stands nearer to unconscious processes than does thinking in words, and is unquestionably older than the latter both ontogenetically and phylogenetically.” There is, in other words, something primordial, something foundational, about thinking visually.
Such a view is anathema to many philoso- phers, a good many of whom believe that all thought is propositional, that to think is to use words. For some of the most distinguished philosophers in history, thinking and verbalis- ing were practically the same thing. Bertrand Russell sometimes to his great frustration, was hopeless at visualising and was more or less indifferent to the visual arts…..
Architect Norman Foster denies turning New York Public Library into a Starbooks
Tim Teeman New York
December 20 2012
The president of the New York Public Library, one of the city’s best-loved buildings, yesterday sought to end months of controversy surrounding its future as he unveiled plans to dramatically remodel it at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. Critics fear that the landmark building will become more a visitor attraction than a place of study, pervaded with “the aroma of the coffee bean”.
Tony Marx, however, said that plans drawn up by the British architect Lord Foster of Thames Bank would “create the single most exciting library in the world”.
The renovations, originally priced at $300 million but now expected to be “somewhat higher”, will bring together in one building the deteriorating Mid-Manhattan Library and the Science, Industry and Business Library…..
40 things you didn’t know about Jane Austen
Bharat Tandon
This year marks the bicentenary of Pride and Prejudice, so here is everything you always wanted to know about its author
1 She was anonymous
Her name did not appear in any of her own novels during her lifetime (Sense and Sensibility was “by A Lady”, and the others were “by the Author of . . .”). Henry Austen officially revealed her as the author in the posthumously published edition of Northanger Abbeyand Persuasion (1818).
2 She was “common”
While James Edward Austen-Leigh’s 1870 Memoir of Jane Austenmay have canonised her as “dear aunt Jane”, not all her family remembered her so fondly. Fanny Knight, later Lady Knatchbull (1793-1882), one of Austen’s favourite nieces, was snobbish in later life about her aunt’s lack of social refinement, writing in 1869 that Austen “was too clever not to put aside all possible signs of ‘common-ness’ [. . .] & teach herself to be more refined”…..
A list of 20 notable classics and rediscoveries that screened in Chicago in 2012
Ben Sachs
I had far less difficulty picking ten favorite new releases of 2012 than I did selecting just one older movie as my favorite revival of the year. Chicago remains an incredible city in which to learn about film history; every week offers numerous big-screen presentations of classics and rediscoveries and in a variety of venues. My 20 favorite revival screenings of the past year, listed below the jump, took place at art-house theaters, universities, living rooms, and one bar. While I didn’t find room for them on the list, the Logan Theatre’s late-night revivals of older films (which range from cult hits like Return to Oz to established classics likeDays of Heaven) have been a welcome contribution to the city’s movie culture. These casual exhibitions confirm that movie history is simply part of daily life here.
In chronological order, my favorite screenings were:
Bill Douglas Trilogy (Doc Films, February and March) Doc’s exceptional British New Wave series contained several gems—namely, a rare revival of Jerzy Skolimowski’s Deep End—but these three featurettes were the most eye-opening. Prior to these screenings I’d never heard of Douglas, a colleague of Terence Davies who advanced a similarly poetic and autobiographical filmmaking style. His small body of work demands to be better known…..
The iPad Orchestra App
The Orchestra: a new iPad app that strikes all the right notes.
The Philharmonia Orchestra’s impressive new app blends music, video and interactive instrument guide into an instant classic.
The orchestra. There’s an app for that. No, there really is: the Philharmonia Orchestra app, released on Thursday, is one of the most impressive bits of app-ology I’ve ever seen. For anyone who’s new to the Philharmonia – or for seasoned listeners for that matter – it’s a fantastically immersive experience that creates, via an iPad, something new in the field of classical music interactivity.
Arne Quinze
Structured Chaos
Public Wooden Installation, Village Mall, Rio De Janeiro
For this public installation area Quinze foresees a wooden installation referring to the theme of “structured chaos”. “There’s no chaos, only structure” is a tagline in some of his work expressing his inner self and how he describes his thoughts. To him there is no chaos, everything is structured even in the chaos you can only find structure.
At first sight this monumental wooden structure of 18 meters high seems a visual chaos with mixed orange and natural colored wooden slats. Yet at a closer look one will notice all wooden planks are put on a specific place having a precise function. Seemingly constantly seeking for an equilibrium the structure never loses its balance. It’s almost like you can see the installation moving. Neon lights will be hung in the sculpture to accentuate this feeling of movement.
Positive effect
Although he realizes communal activities are diminishing, his installations are built to represent a symbolic and physical connection between people and to provoke reaction. He aims to intervene in the daily life of passersby confronted with these eye-catching sculptures. By using his trademark orange colour and monumental dimensions the artist instigates astonishment and literally lures the people into the space. These aspects rise questions and fascination. Often he compares his installations with the effect of what we feel when seeing a great force of nature. Confrontation with unspoilt nature blows you away and leaves you completely dazed. In the city confrontation of this proportion is lacking. This semi-public installation will have that function in an urban context.
Dynamic flood
The installation brings a new spirit to its surrounding environment, a new atmosphere, a changing, dynamic mood. People will talk about this with each other and will hope for more of these to come in the future. Quinze aspires a sole person will push himself to explore his creativity by seeing this installation. To Arne Quinze the artwork is not merely a local story but a new location in his international grid of installations. This becomes a new pillar in his communication network. As he believes cities and people only benefit from being confronted with art he sees this installation as a true semi-public installation, art bringing people together and opening their horizon.
As Quinze embraces the principle to work within the ethics of sustainability all wood used in the installation has the EFC-label, a European standard, for sustainable cut wood. For every tree cut, a new one is planted.
Documentary
Secret Garden Documentary
The International Sculpture Symposium, Auckland
The International Sculpture Center is pleased to announce the International Sculpture Symposium, “International Dialog” taking place in Auckland, New Zealand from February 11-15, 2013. The event is in partnership with the Auckland Art Gallery, and will be comprised of daytime and evening programming, including keynote addresses by world renowned sculptors, stimulating panel discussions and organized trips to Alan Gibb’s sculpture collection at The Farm, Connells Bay Sculpture Park and several private home collection tours. Information and registration can be found here: http://www.sculpture.org/nz2013/. More information listed below including prices and optional tours.
The three-day symposium, in partnership with the Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, NZ, will be comprised of daytime and evening programs, including keynote addresses by world renowned sculptors, stimulating panel discussions and organized trips to Alan Gibb’s sculpture collection at The Farm, Connells Bay Sculpture Park and several private artist studios. Other activities will include pre- and post- symposium tours and travel opportunities.
Contact Samantha Rauscher, ISC Conferences and Events Coordinator for additional information US 609.689.1051 ext.302 or samantha@sculpture.org.
Pricing:
ISC Members: $550 USD
Non-members: $650 USD
Companions: $400 USD
International Sculpture Symposium
Auckland, New Zealand
10 of the greatest painters who changed the world of art, by Brian Sewell
MASACCIO, 1401-1428
His nickname meaning ‘Big Tom’ or ‘Clumsy Tom’ (his real name, Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone Cassai, is remembered by no one), Masaccio died in 1428 aged only 26 while working on the Brancacci Chapel frescoes of the life of St Peter, including The Baptism Of The Neophytes. They were so astonishing in their realism, characterisation and communication of form, activity and emotion, that the chapel served as something of a school for later generations of Florentine painters, and to Vasari, the painter-historian, Masaccio was the founder of painting in Florence. Traces of his influence are evident in the work of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael at the end of the 15th century….
Russian Art at The Saatchi Gallery
Ben Luke
While Charles Saatchi’s recent forays into contemporary Russian art occupy the two lower floors of his gallery, above them is a huge show which reflects what happened before. Often made under the radar, the experiments of Moscow-based artists between the Sixties and Eighties and then in the immediately post-Soviet era offer a fascinating complement to Saatchi’s latest acquisitions and an intriguing counterpoint to western art of the same epoch.
The works are not from Saatchi’s collection but gathered from public and private collections by the Tsukanov Family Foundation. Many loosely relate to concurrent western movements and groups—abstract expressionism, pop art, conceptual art — but the repressive conditions in the Soviet Union prompted different content and methods.
Jacques Derrida
In May 1992, the dons of Cambridge University filed into their parliament to vote on whether to award an honorary degree to the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, founder of so-called deconstruction. Despite a deftly managed smear campaign by the opposition, Derrida’s supporters carried the day. It would be interesting to know how many of those who tried to block him in the name of rigorous scholarship had read a single book of his, or even a couple of articles.
What does the future hold for printed books?
by Anthony Daniels
……Whether the book survives or not, I am firmly of the opinion that it ought to survive, and nothing will convince me otherwise. The heart has its beliefs that evidence knows not of. For me, to browse in a bookshop, especially a second-hand one, will forever be superior to browsing on the internet precisely because chance plays a much larger part in it. There are few greater delights than entirely by chance to come across something not only fascinating in itself, but that establishes a quite unexpected connection with something else. The imagination is stimulated in a way that the more logical connections of the Internet cannot match; the Internet will make people literal-minded…..
Clive James translates Dante’s Divine Comedy
While reports of Mr. James’s imminent demise were dispiriting to him, they also gave him a rare opportunity that many dream of but few get to enjoy: the chance to read his own eulogies.
And what eulogies they were. Admiring articles, blog posts and tweets poured out, celebrating the elegance and wit of Mr. James’s cultural criticism, the restless, erudite breadth of his interests and ideas, and his uncanny knack for funny, deadly descriptions, such as the time he thrillingly compared Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Pumping Iron” to “a brown condom full of walnuts.”
Somewhat reluctantly, then, Mr. James put an end to all the praise by issuing a death-denying statement. And being not-dead in a recent interview, Mr. James could sit on a sofa in his house here, sip his coffee and talk about his latest work: a translation of Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” which will be published by Liveright (a W. W. Norton imprint) next spring…..