Bob Dylan doing a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing In The Dark,” at Toads Place, New Haven, CT January 1990.
Happy Birthday Bob Dylan.
Taking in a concert doubleheader with Creed and Nickelback, the world's most hated bands - Grantland →
ktlb:
Interesting read. Sometimes I forget that people legitimately love Creed and Nickelback,
![theatlantic:
The Return of the Novella, the Original #Longread
Publishers like short stories, and they love novels. But when a writer submits a mid-length work that falls somewhere between two genres, booksellers balk and editors narrow their eyes. This is the domain of the novella, an unfairly neglected literary art form that’s been practiced for centuries by celebrated writers—from Charles Dickens to Jane Smiley to Alain Mabanckou—yet faces an ongoing struggle for commercial viability. “For me, the word denotes a lesser genre,” literary agent Karolina Sutton told The Guardian in 2011. “If you pitch a book to a bookseller as a novel, you’re likely to get more orders than if you call it a novella.”
Mid-length works suffer from a koan-like criticism: They’re too short and they’re also too long. Novellas hog too much space to appear in magazines and literary journals, but they’re usually too slight to release as books. If a reader’s going to spend 16 bucks, the notion goes, he wants to take home a Franzen-size tome—not a slim volume he can slip in a jacket pocket. […]
Now the beleaguered genre, at long last, has found a worthy and consistent champion: Melville House Publishing, whose “Art of the Novella” series is an ongoing celebration of the form. The Brooklyn-based press offers 47—and counting—novellas from writers like Cervantes, Jane Austen, Anton Chekhov, Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, and Virginia Woolf. Specifically drawing attention to the novella’s brevity, diversity, and lineage of distinguished practitioners, the series is the first of its kind.
Each sleek, modernist edition comes suited in a monochrome cover with French flaps. There are no blurb quotes, no graphics or illustrations. Just the author’s name, the title, and on the back, a pull quote. At nine dollars each, they’re a steal.
Read more. [Image: Melville House]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2zrm8v3ub1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
The Return of the Novella, the Original #Longread
Publishers like short stories, and they love novels. But when a writer submits a mid-length work that falls somewhere between two genres, booksellers balk and editors narrow their eyes. This is the domain of the novella, an unfairly neglected literary art form that’s been practiced for centuries by celebrated writers—from Charles Dickens to Jane Smiley to Alain Mabanckou—yet faces an ongoing struggle for commercial viability. “For me, the word denotes a lesser genre,” literary agent Karolina Sutton told The Guardian in 2011. “If you pitch a book to a bookseller as a novel, you’re likely to get more orders than if you call it a novella.”
Mid-length works suffer from a koan-like criticism: They’re too short and they’re also too long. Novellas hog too much space to appear in magazines and literary journals, but they’re usually too slight to release as books. If a reader’s going to spend 16 bucks, the notion goes, he wants to take home a Franzen-size tome—not a slim volume he can slip in a jacket pocket. […]
Now the beleaguered genre, at long last, has found a worthy and consistent champion: Melville House Publishing, whose “Art of the Novella” series is an ongoing celebration of the form. The Brooklyn-based press offers 47—and counting—novellas from writers like Cervantes, Jane Austen, Anton Chekhov, Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, and Virginia Woolf. Specifically drawing attention to the novella’s brevity, diversity, and lineage of distinguished practitioners, the series is the first of its kind.
Each sleek, modernist edition comes suited in a monochrome cover with French flaps. There are no blurb quotes, no graphics or illustrations. Just the author’s name, the title, and on the back, a pull quote. At nine dollars each, they’re a steal.
Read more. [Image: Melville House]
Sharing Poetry: Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias" →
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert… . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet…
ATLANTIC CITY
The Golden Rule (Draft)
Lately, it seems, I’ve had a problem
Or two, with my feelings, the nature
Of them, rather; that I have become
Too callous for my own good. There
Was a time— there was never a time,
Actually, when I felt as part of the crowd,
I have always been distant, and not
Made for these times, as it were.
I get tired; so, so tired, when I think of
The struggle of having to cope with
The human race. That my daily life
Is littered with the ignorant, the wan,
The idiotic, the asinine, the whole lot
Of people who’s sense of the world
Could do the world a whole lot better
If it could rid the world of it’s existence.
I’m tired of explaining my ways, which
Are, as a matter of fact, better than your
Ways. Like trying to explain to a person
That killing someone is wrong, that all
Humans should have rights, as much
As it pains me to give it to them. Do I
Want to? No. I don’t. Most people are
Dogs, Asses, even better still, Ants,
And ants without the common decency
That they show one another. Looking
At an ant colony makes one saddened
At the thought of rush hour traffic. How
Can so many people have thought that
A person could be bad just by the color
Of their skin, who they wanted to lie with,
Whether or not they could “choose”
What happens to their owns bodies. The
Struggles people have had to go through
Because of the ignorance of so many
Other fucking people is just utterly,
Incomprehensibly, stupidly, and just plain
Old fucking crazy. Just stop the bullshit.
That’s all I ask. That we stop believing that
What we believe is more precious than
What others believe. That we stop believing
That we are unarguably correct about just
About everything. No one has the claim to
Being the most right, all-the-time, person.
That person just does not exist. You don’t get
To say what I can and cannot do unless it
Impedes upon what you are ability to do as
You please as well. I have no time for the
Bullshit argument that this means that “I can
Just get up and kill anyone I please?” No.
No it doesn’t, and you are wrong. You are wrong
If you thought that. You are also a bad person.
Not because you think I’m wrong, but the first
Thing you think of when you think complete
Freedom for the human race is the ability to
Kill someone. And that’s not freedom, now
Is it? I no longer want to live in fear for what the
Next generation of children is going to see, that
They will be brought up into a world where so
Many things are going on, ignored, as if they
Were wrinkles that could iron themselves out,
That they were dust we could sweep under the
Rug, out of sight, out of mind. They are not. And
The strange trick that I intended to pull, was not
To make a personal list of grievances I have
Against the world—save the big ones: War,
Racism, Sexism. My goal here was to make you
Think about your own list of personal grievances
That you have against the world. Things that
Really make you fucking angry. From the person
Just jaywalking on the street, to Genocides
Committed by corrupt leaders of corrupt governments.
Think about these things that make you most angry.
Think about these things, and tell me they don’t
Stir in you some sort of emotion, that you’d stop
Them if you could. Well, you can, as a matter of fact.
Just do the right thing. At all times, you should do what
Not benefits you, but what benefits everyone. What you
Do affects everyone, if you are the President or a Janitor,
What you do has an effect on some other person. Stop
Being racist. Don’t murder anyone. Don’t rape anyone. Don’t
impede the rights of anyone. Don’t let your religion stand in
The ways of others—your Holy Book does not give you extra
Rights. Don’t cheat anyone. As I hear the words that I say, I
Cringe almost that I feel the need to even utter these words
To begin with. No one should have to be told not to do these
Things. We live in the 21st century. We have computers and
All the amenities that should make life easier for everyone
On this planet. Without greed, without gluttony, there would
Have been no World Hunger. Without evil companies, there
Would be no global warming. We should be praising people
Who are doing things for the betterment of everyone. We should
Praise the scientists looking for the cures, Praise the Holy men
That are preaching acceptance, Praise the lawmakers who truly
Want to do right by their people, Praise the driver that stops for
The pedestrian, Praise the banquet diners that donate their food
To those that cannot eat, Praise the mothers who raise their children
With love, Praise the fathers that father, Praise all the brothers and
Sisters that grow up with love, Praise the families that sit around
The dinner table, Praise the schools that teach our children, Praise
The teacher that cares, Praise the artists for making our world a little
More beautiful, Praise the writers that reveal ourselves, Praise the
Cops and the firefighters for doing their best to keep us safe, Praise
The Earth for giving us all that has made our life possible. Realize
That the cars, the computers, the food, all of us were made from her
Dirt, and from the dust of stars before that. That no matter if there is a
God or not, we are still here. We are alive. We continue to live on this
Planet. We daily have to live with ourselves and each other, and if were
Not doing everything we can to make it as easy as possible for everyone
To live together, for everyone to just live, we may as well not be doing
Anything at all. Life is only one life. We must do well by each other.
WE must treat others as we would want to be treated.
Federico Fellini sends a telegram to Stanley Kubrick in 1968, shortly after release of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
DEAR STANLEY I SAW YESTERDAY YOUR FILM AND I NEED TO TELL YOU MY EMOTION MY ENTHUSIASM STOP I WISH YOU THE BEST LUCK IN YOUR PATH FEDERICO FELLINI +++
Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, Attesa, 1966.
(via cavetocanvas)
Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea, c. 1890
From the Metropolitan Museum of Art:
Late in his career, Gérôme turned to the medium of sculpture. Between 1890 and 1893, he executed both sculpted and painted variations on the theme of Pygmalion and Galatea, as the tale is recounted in Ovid’s “Metamorphoses.” All of those works depict the moment when the sculpture of Galatea was brought to life by the goddess Venus, in fulfillment of Pygmalion’s wish for a wife as beautiful as the sculpture he created.
In 1890, Gérôme commented that he had “just begun” a painting of Pygmalion and Galatea. This is one of three known versions in oil of the subject, all likely based on the plaster model of a lifesize marble sculpture (Hearst Castle, San Simeon, California). In each painting, the sculpture appears at a different angle, as though it was being viewed in the round.
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
Sidney Bechet - Si tu vois ma mère
lux et veritas.
