George R.R. Martin is busy / not busy...probably bored.

Game of Thrones dad and occasional seafaring captain lookalike George R.R. Martin recently had an interview with Metro newspapers, and once again defended the casual, sauntering pace his writing has taken in recent years:

"I did not start to write slower over the years," the American author explained. "I was working on the first book for six year and four years on the second one. Fantasists who release their novels every year, do not offer books of large volume. These are not 1.5k pages like mine, but, for example, 500. In addition, I have not become younger. Age does not add enthusiasm."

When asked if he watched the TV show--which, at this point, has blown past the plot line in the books--Martin said he hasn't caught much lately of Jon, Dany, and crew because of his touring and writing.

That dull ache you feel is the onset of a headache trying to figure out Martin's verbal dance-around. He's closing in on seven years to write the latest GoT installment, but he "did not start to write slower over the years." Uh-huh. Yet--YET!--at the same time, "age does not add enthusiasm." And to cap it off, he's too busy to watch an hour of TV once a week because of all the writing/touring going on.

Lest Martin forget, he's not getting any younger doing conventions across the country or interviews with media outlets that find him repeating the same train of thought again and again.

Age doesn't add enthusiasm--although neither does a lack of new books.

So, apparently Victor Hugo isn't as popular as he was back in the day.

Two game show contestants in England were playing a sort of Wheel of Fortune knockoff called Letterbox when they had to spell out a fictional character. Everyone in the audience, the host, and the two players' teammates knew the answer, but this intellectual dynamic duo was a bit dense.





"Does that open things up for you Lyndsey?" asks the host kindly. Oh, I think we're opening her up to a world of 19th century literature right before our eyes.

Hell, even Disney made a version of Hugo's classic awhile back. But we all know Quasimodo is no Mufasa or Aladdin.

Agatha Christie was kind of a grouch.

Shocking news that a woman who largely only wrote about murder and death was not a lighthearted soul, but letters on display reveal Agatha Christie was generally irked by life.

The letters, which will be on exhibition at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival held in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England, show Christie was annoyed by most anything, like over the covers of her books.

According to The Guardian, for her 1947 book The Labours of Hercules, a Pekingese was featured on the cover. Harmless, you might say. Her family found laughs in it, but Christie was furious and wrote her publisher:

"The wrapper design for Hercules has occasioned the most ribald and obscene remarks and suggestions from my family – All I can say is – Try again!!" (sic).

Another time, she complained the cover of another book made the main character look like he was "going to a funeral and dressed accordingly."

In 1967, she apparently found out her latest book was already released without her receiving an advanced copy. She was in a "fury" when she found out the book was already on sale in Helsinki, of all places.

"It’s usually [available] in November and then it comes in very handy for sending to friends at Xmas time – but one can hardly send it as that now? I do think it’s treating your authors disgracefully."

More than anything, Christie was annoyed by aging. As a 59-year old, she wrote to a friend, Bertie Meyer, who was staging a play based on one of her books. "I've had letters now from different fans expressing surprise that I am 'such an old lady'," she wrote, adding about pictures of herself:

"Nobody likes [the photos], possibly, perhaps, because they don’t seem to have been touched up at all? All lines and wrinkles – and dash it all, I'm not 70 – not yet 60."

If you want to read more of Christie's moaning and complaining (so, you know, you feel like a cheery lad by comparison), the festival will be held July 20-23.

We will return to our regularly scheduled programming shortly.

After five months, Bob Dylan will finally get around to accepting his Nobel Prize.

Not like it's one of the biggest awards a human being can be bestowed with in life--no rush--but five months after being announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Bob Dylan will finally get around to accepting his award.

Not to go out of his way, Dylan will be in Stockholm, Sweden, playing two concerts, and figures then will be as good as any to grab the award.

To receive his prize money, though, Dylan must give a lecture--which is not expected to be done in person. Instead, Dylan is expected--if at all--to give a lecture via recording at a later date.

And the reason they couldn't just give this to Paul Simon instead was...?

Lateness tends to be a habit in some people.

This is teaching life lessons.

Two years ago, the New York Post documented what was potentially the worst grade school in America.

PS 106 in Far Rockaway, Queens, NYC, smelled of urine, had rats crawling in the walls, lacked textbooks, didn't teach art or gym classes, and lacked formal reading and math programs. As if that wasn't bad enough, students were left to watch movies like Alvin and The Chipmunks and Monsters, Inc. for hours at a time. This suddenly turned more tortuous than a North Korean prison.

This school of such impeccable educational standards was overseen by Marcella Sills, the principal. The school slipped through the cracks because it's evident that no one in a city of seven million cares to oversee deplorable conditions for children--and what 10-year old kid is going to blow the whistle on all-day animated movie marathons?

Now, according to The Post, "Last year, an arbitrator ruled Sills had 'committed theft of time' between September 2012 and January 2014 by failing to document 178 instances of her tardiness and hours absent from school." As a result, she lost her job. Ever the optimistic sort of rascal, Sills filed a reinstatement petition.

The problem with the principal that always showed up late to work is that she--wait for it, wait for it--filed her petition late, too.

As a result, Manhattan Judge Manuel Mendez tossed the reinstatement petition by Sills.

Somewhere in Far Rockaway, Queens, a group of grade schoolers released a collected defeated sigh that they'll never get marathon sessions of Alvin and The Chipmunks ever again.

The comedic stylings of Drexel University professor causes a ruckus.

On Christmas day, Drexel University associate professor of politics George Ciccariello-Maher, went for the open-mic night material and decided to tweet the following (now made private on Twitter):

"All I want for Christmas is white genocide."

If this sounds similar to that time you posted your negative holiday views about fruitcake on Facebook, it's exactly like that, except deadlier and a lot more problematic for millions of racists.

Conservative news sites like Breitbart lathered up the masses, worried that an intellectual was encouraging the death of white society.

Ciccariello-Maher released a statement saying that his tweet was satirical (zing!), even though his follow-up tweet on Sunday also said:

"To clarify: when the whites were massacre [sic] during the Haitian revolution, that was a good thing indeed."

This is the worst Saturday Night Live sketch ever,

Admittedly, I'm not certain the professor understands how satire works, and--if anything--the comedic stylings of Ciccariello-Maher are a little  moderately  massively dry, but it raises multiple issues.

White supremacists and their poorly run websites irrationally fear an American "white genocide" that will topple them from the socio-economic power position in the United States. Meanwhile, academics fear that freedom of speech will be smothered by a notable American university as a means to kill bad press.

In the end, what will really happen from all of this?

Nothing.

It'll blow over. News will cycle. Drexel University will sweat it out. Ciccariello-Maher will remain hidden on Twitter. White supremacists will spread hate. And everything old is new again is old again is new.

Zing!

Because satire is hard.

Bob Dylan didn't show up to accept his Nobel Prize in Literature because--I don't know--he's a busy man?

He didn't show up because Bob Dylan has been, is, and always will be about creating a fictionalized mystique around himself.

When Dylan was announced as the 2016 Nobel Laureate in Literature, he refused for two weeks to respond to the Swedish Academy's attempts at contacting him. His reasoning? "I was out on the road when I received this surprising news, and it took me more than a few minutes to properly process it."

A few? Apparently it took Dylan 20,160 minutes to process it--the amount in two weeks--before the synapses in his brain could wrap around the idea that a plagiarist could become a Nobel winner.

Fast forward to the award ceremony, and Dylan was a no show. In his stead, fellow folk singer Patti Smith sang Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall," and the American ambassador to Sweden read Dylan's prepared speech.

The Atlantic nearly fainted in excitement in their coverage of Dylan's speech, calling it--among many things--"subversively humble." But the real pearl from The Atlantic might be this nugget:

"It’s not that he doesn’t want to question whether his songs are literature, it’s that he hasn’t had the time."

It seems Bob Dylan is burning the candle at both ends 24/7/365, so much so that the poor man truly can't even think. Why aren't we staging an intervention to save this brave man's life from self-destruction? HE CAN'T EVEN PROCESS THOUGHT.

The Atlantic continues, writing about Patti Smith's singing at the banquet:

"She delivered an aching rendition of his song “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” during which she forgot the words to the second verse and had to start again—a mistake that only heightened the lyrics’ mystery and power."

The song is so powerful, even Dylan's great friend couldn't remember the lyrics. Do you want to take a crack at singing this life-altering, classic, American song off the top of your head? Go ahead. I'll wait. [[[[[waits an hour]]]]] You don't know the powerful lyrics, do you? They might be so powerful, they make it impossible to think. Bob Dylan can alter space and time.

If you're a masochist and want to read the text to Dylan's speech, you can find it elsewhere, but not here.

Odds are in a few years we'll find out he cribbed half the speech from a Zimbabwean children's book and the musings of a politician in ancient Estonia. That's the true Bob Dylan way.

Joseph Stalin loved his son as much as he loved the Russian people--which is to say, not so much.

Joseph Stalin was a tyrant, a dictator, and a despot that led the USSR for thirty years, and his actions and behaviors caused millions of Russians to die in purges and in prison camps.

In other words, he was a sweetheart.

You can see that sweetheart behavior in the way Stalin wrote a letter to his then 17-year old son's school teacher in 1938. Vasily Stalin was thought to be a spoiled, bratty child, and apparently word traveled back to dad about his son's misdeeds at school. The teacher complained to the Soviet leader, and Joseph Stalin wrote back apologizing, all while showing as little affection as possible for his son:


"To teacher comrade Martyshin. I have received your letter about escapades of Vasily Stalin. Thank you for the letter. Replying with a great delay because of being overloaded with work. My apologies. Vasily is a spoiled young man of average abilities, little wildman, not always honest, likes to blackmail weak "teachers," not rarely an insolent fellow, with weak - or more accurately - unorganized willpower.


He was spoiled by various "god fathers" and "god mommies," who continually emphasize that he is "Stalin's son." I am glad that in your person there is at least one self-respecting teacher who treats Vasily as everyone else and demands that the insolent boy follows the school's policy. Vasily is spoiled by principals like the one you mentioned, washcloth-people, who have no place at school; and if insolent Vasily hasn't destroyed himself yet it is because our country still has teachers who don't give slack to the little young swell.


My advice: demand stricter from Vasily and don't be afraid of fake blackmail threats of "suicide" from the capricious child. You will have my support.
Unfortunately I don't have the opportunity to fuss with Vasily myself. But promise to grab him by the collar from time to time.


Cheers!"


Average abilities, weak, not honest, spoiled, and insolent?

Aww, dad really did love his son after all!

Even distinguished people have failed before.

You'd never know it of course. In an era where social media allows individuals to craft idealized versions of themselves for public consumption, you'd never realize that failure and disappointment exists for others.

Princeton University psychology assistant professor Johannes Haushofer decided to post a CV of every professional and academic failure he's encountered in his career, including rejections from degree programs, research journals, and funding for projects. Haushofer did this to "balance the record" in the public sphere and hopefully encourage others facing similar disappointments.

New "publication": My CV of Failures! https://t.co/d8ot5vvynY

— Johannes Haushofer (@jhaushofer) April 23, 2016

As Haushofer wrote on his website:


"Most of what I try fails, but these failures are often invisible, while the successes are visible," he noted.

"I have noticed that this sometimes gives others the impression that most things work out for me.

"As a result, they are more likely to attribute their own failures to themselves, rather than the fact that the world is stochastic, applications are crapshoots, and selection committees and referees have bad days."


So when life has you down because you're somehow reenacting the lyrics to a stereotypical 1970s-era country song, when life is really just miserable, realize even an Ivy League professor has had those days, too.

Harvard has a mumps outbreak.

Forty students have come down with the virus and the school is worried it could affect the May 26th commencement.

There have now been 40 confirmed cases of mumps at #Harvard. https://t.co/gPVJYsENGF pic.twitter.com/1agjus0GPf

— The Harvard Crimson (@thecrimson) April 26, 2016

This is very reminiscent of the time I graduated college with a cold.

In that no one really cared.

Spain sort of shoulder shrugged their way through Cervantes' own 400th anniversary.

Cervnates is so sad, even his
mustache and eyebrows are frowning.

Not only does Spain contrast with England in weather, food, and attractiveness of its citizenry, it also contrasts in how they venerate their nation's most famous writer.

This weekend England nearly ground to a collective halt in adoration of their dearly departed Shakespeare for the 400th anniversary of his death. The Royal Mint released a coin commemorating him, monarchy praised him, and every cultural and public institution seemingly held an event to honor him. Things were as Englishy as England gets outside of a Monty Python sketch in the rain.

But just south, in Spain, the nation had to be tapped on the shoulder to be reminded that the 400th anniversary of Cervantes' death was occurring, too.

How badly was Cervantes ignored? Arturo Pérez-Reverte, one of Spain’s best-selling novelists, wrote online that the Spanish government's response was "the international embarrassment of the year of Cervantes." No major celebrations, no cultural standstill. An annual book award in his name was given out, but that's done every year with a collective yawn from the populace.

Admittedly, Spain is in the fifth month without an elected government, but there is a government nonetheless. That government simply just didn't make much ado about anything. Proof in point: A little over a year ago, Cervantes' body was discovered in a convent. Yet, according to the historian who led the search, Fernando de Prado, Spain has done "absolutely nothing" to promote the burial site.

José María Lassalle, state secretary for culture, explained to the New York Times the laissez-faire attitude to the anniversary as an attempt "to break with the philosophy" of the 1980s and 1990s when socialist governments heavily subsidized celebrations and strictly directed them. In 2016, it was supposed to happen organically.

Lassalle forgot that even organic things sometimes never grow.

Oh, the Boston Globe headline wasn't really that interesting at all.

Never mind.

The Boston Globe tweeted days ago they were going to reveal today the one headline they never wanted to publish. Some people wondered. Was the paper folding? Going solely online? The moon landings were all fake? What was it?

Instead, the Globe decided to try their best impersonation of The Onion and do a satirical front page.

Strike up the Yakety Sax music, because things just became rib-tickling here!

Dated one year from now, April 9, 2017, it creates a grim view of the nation and the world under a then-President Trump. Curfews, deportations, trade wars. Let the hilarity ensue!

This is the satirical equivalent of having Chips Ahoy! say they make chocolate chip cookies just like grandma makes. Sure, it sounds fine, but we all know grandma's cookies can't be beat.

Which is why satire is left to The Onion. Leave it alone.

And leave the cookies to grandma, too.

Over 1,200 Columbia University students aren't fans of modernist art, but big supporters of crisp lawns.

Henry Moore was a famed English-born sculptor. Maybe you're not well-versed in famous 20th century sculptors because you have an active social life outside the realm of scultping or don't dabble in multimillion dollar lawn art.

But Moore's sculptures are found around the world. How "around the world" are we talking?

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Piazza San Marco, Prato, Italy
Toronto City Hall, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Kenwood House Grounds, London, England
Jardine House, Central, Hong Kong
Zürichhorn, Zürich-Seefeld, Switzerland
Queen Elizabeth Park, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Bouwcentrum, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany
--and on--
--and on--
--countless international locations--
And the list continues on around the world until you eventually include:
Columbia University, New York City, New York, USA

And what would be the point of stating how worldly accepted Moore's work is?

Over 1,200 students have signed a petition published in the school's newspaper arguing against the placement of Moore's Reclining Figure (1969-70) in front of the school's library simply because they think it's ugly. Thank goodness, too, because in a world of chaos, violence, and injustice, I'd hate to see so many people get behind something trivial.

The petition is passionate in its plea (my thoughts/sarcasm in parentheses):

As both inheritors and wards (ooh, they went big time and dropped a "wards" in there) of our beautiful campus ('beautiful'--funny word to use when you're arguing against art), we object to this desecration of our home. ('Desecrate' means a violation of something nearly sacred, like knocking over tombstones. In other words, Columbia is old and forgotten?) Whatever its artistic merits (said with a dismissive hand wave/finger snap), the sculpture in front of Butler Library will disrupt an otherwise crisp, geometric, and symmetrical landscape. ('Crisp' should only reference salads and January mornings.) Further, Moore’s modernist figure clashes with the neoclassical aesthetic instantly recognizable to generations of Columbians. (My long-deceased great-great-great-great grandfather will never recognize the place now.) It will also rob the the community of some of the few precious square yards of grass open to the public. (Yes, come gather, all of New York City, on yards on grass.)

The snow is hiding all the yards of crispness!!

The petition won't hold. Moore's Reclining Figure already has a base constructed outside of Butler Library and is soon to be set, ready to assault the tender sensibilities of Columbia's huddled, frightened masses.

This is Columbia University, not Canada. Toronto's City Hall might slum it with a Moore sculpture and amuse that hoi polloi, but they elected a mayor high on crack after all. Columbia students would suggest that explains Toronto's choice in art.



photos: Columbia and Wiki Commons

J.K. Rowling shares some rejection letters--after she already was published.

Harry Potter author J,K, Rowling released on Twitter two rejection letters she received from publishing houses--after she had already created the world of Hogwart's and wizardry.

The only catch? She wrote under a pseudonym: Robert Galbraith.

The novel was Rowling's second adult book, The Cuckoo's Calling, which was released in 2013 under the fake name. The letters being made public were in response to a fan's Twitter question if there were any rejection letters Rowling would like to share regarding Harry Potter. Rowling claimed those were in a box in the attic (sure, right), but she had others--the Robert Galbraith letters.

One publishing house, Constable & Robinson, wrote Rowling at the time that the business "could not publish [Cuckoo's Calling] with commercial success." As if being rejected wasn't bad enough, Constable & Robinson tell 'Galbraith' that maybe "a writers' group or writing course may help" with feedback. That's right. Go back to school for a course. That's the equivalent of an intellectual backhand, full of knuckles and dismissiveness.

"I wasn't going to give up until every single publisher turned me down, but I often feared that would happen," Rowling explained.

The joke was on Constable & Robinson and other varying publishing houses, as the book was eventually accepted by Sphere, an imprint of Little, Brown, & Company. Once the world knew it was Rowling and not Galbraith writing the book, it went from the 4,709th bestselling book on Amazon to number one, as well as spawned two sequels.

As for Constable & Robinson, the reason they aren't a super commercial success and J.K. Rowling is is because Constable & Robinson is run by...Constable & Robinson.

Maybe there's a publishing course they can take that might help.

Formerly closed Sweet Briar College is not only operating, it's growing.

Sweet Briar sounds like it should be the name to a long lost Ben & Jerry's flavor. It feels graham cracker based, something with a raspberry or strawberry swirl. Mmm, tasty Sweet Briar!

Except Sweet Briar is apparently a community located in Virginia, one completely lacking in ice cream deliciousness. It is also home to Sweet Briar College, a single sex school of 250 students and 100 faculty that announced in March of 2015 that it would close its doors at the end of the summer session due to huge financial burdens. This impending doom brought alumnae, students, and faculty together to refashion the school. Out went the board and president. In came new blood.

It worked. Things came around. According to USA Today, Sweet Briar College announced that 1,099 prospective students have applied to the school this year, up from 751 in 2015. Money is flowing in. Things are looking up.

Tony Lilly, a Sweet Briar English professor, is hopeful. "There is a sense of security, but I think that’s tempered by an acute sense of the precariousness of liberal arts education in general," says Lilly. "I think one of the lessons [...] is that if it can happen to Sweet Briar it can happen to anybody."

So you're saying Sweet Briar flavored ice cream could still happen then? That's how I'm reading all this.

Oberlin College students are confused about a variety of things, including how to cook General Tso's chicken.

Hold onto your chef's hats, because you're going to be aghast at the culinary travesty going on at Oberlin College in Ohio. At least if you listen to Oberlin College students tell it.

While some college campuses across the country are staging protests over racial inequalities, religious freedoms, and the foundations of free speech--Oberlin students are upset over the food being served at their cafeterias. They claim the vendor in charge of feeding the student body, Bon Appétit Company, and the school itself are serving cuisine that is not only culturally insensitive, but a cultural appropriation.

Why?

According to the school newspaper, The Oberlin Review, and recounted in the New York Times, students find foods offered with an Asian bent offensive. Says the Times:

"The culinary culprits included a soggy, pulled-pork-and-coleslaw sandwich that tried to pass itself off as a traditional Vietnamese banh mi sandwich; a Chinese General Tso's chicken dish made with steamed instead of fried poultry, and some poorly prepared Japanese sushi."

One student, craving some homestyle Vietnamese food, was mortified at what Oberlin thought was a proper banh mi sandwich. "It was ridiculous," he told the Review. "How could they just throw out something completely different and label it as another country’s traditional food?"

That's what tens of millions of Italians have been saying about everything served at Pizza Hut and Domino's, but they're holding strong. THE STRUGGLE IS REAL.

But being a college student doesn't necessarily negate ignorance. See, General Tso's chicken isn't authentic Chinese food by any definition of what it means to be Chinese. That bastardization of Chinese food you're pounding back on New Year's Eve or after a bad breakup? That was created by Chinese immigrants to cater to Americans' horrible taste in fatty foods. If your General Tso's chicken comes steamed, that's not a cultural appropriation--that's a chef actually hoping not to kill you from a glob of grade-A American saturated fat.

And poorly prepared Japanese sushi? Soggy banh mi? That's just called horrible cooking. It's the societal equivalent of getting Kentucky Fried Chicken in Japan. (Of which there are 1,181 locations in Japan.)(Psst: Has anyone ever seen Colonel Sanders and General Tso in a room at the same time? The militarization of our chicken is happening before our eyes! Conspiracy theory!!)

Oberlin students seem confused by a lot of things, like how school cafeterias are supposed to work. You're supposed to be horrified by what's served to you in college, regardless of what style food it is. That way, when you graduate and can afford good food, you know what to avoid.

And that is where you get your education.

To speak it or not to speak it, that is the question.

One of the greatest complaints modern readers have regarding Shakespeare's work is that it's not approachable, that his word choice and phrasing is too dense to unravel in order to understand. It's as if everyone reading Hamlet or Macbeth collectively gets a migraine trying to figure it out. Pass the Advil.

This sort of collective groan from confused people is what has led various Shakespearean theatrical companies to reconfigure the bard's work into modern vernacular. Gone are the "thee"s and "thou"s and sentences that sound like Yoda on a bender. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival--an 80-year old annual event--is the latest to jump on the modernization bandwagon. As James Shapiro notes in an opinion piece this week in the New York Times:

"However well intended, this experiment is likely to be a waste of money and talent, for it misdiagnoses the reason that Shakespeare’s plays can be hard for playgoers to follow. The problem is not the often knotty language; it’s that even the best directors and actors — British as well as American — too frequently offer up Shakespeare’s plays without themselves having a firm enough grasp of what his words mean."

Or, taking it one step further, we have become so beholden to the rhythm and patterns of 21st century speech, that simply making an effort to interpret a different cadence, a different pulse to the phrasing Shakespeare uses has become too much for readers and playgoers to bother with. It isn't simply a dumbing down. It's apathy. It's mental inertia. It's intellectual lethargy that wants things handed over easily.

Put in more simplistic terms: It's wanting a 12-course French meal, but only willing to pay for a Big Mac.

BREAKING NEWS: UConn student who wanted his "(expletive) bacon-jalapeno mac and cheese" has been expelled.

Luke Gatti, the very passionate mac and cheese lover who was arrested after causing a hubbub at UConn's food court, has reportedly been expelled from the school.

Here was his mugshot after the arrest:

Aww, he's so young, he could still stand to use some Proactiv! But it appears that our baby-faced lush is going to have to find his beloved bacon-jalapeno delight somewhere else next year.

Let's remember our cheesy pasta lover one last time:

The 10 Greatest New York Shakespeare Theater Productions

According to The Daily News, the list ranges from 2007's Romeo and Juliet (#10) to 2013's Twelfth Night (#1), with a little Al Pacino's Merchant of Venice and Ian McKellan's King Lear sprinkled in.

The list includes two different stagings of Twelfth Night, suggesting that either the critic who selected the list really, really loves himself some Twelfth Night, or quality presentations of Shakespeare's comedies don't exist.

Or both.





photo: Time.com