Snapzu Entertainment: November 2016

Wednesday, 30 November 2016

A personal take on a potential full-length Overwatch movie and TV-series

I don´t know if it´s because I´ve been lacking of sleep for the last couple of days, or if it´s because I´ve been reading, watching and hearing a lot of stuff about “Overwatch” as of la…
Read more: http://thegg.net/opinion-editorial/a-personal-take-on-a-potential-full-length-overwatch-movie-and-tv-series/?source=Snapzu

On Fidel Castro’s Friendships With Literary Giants

Whatever else he may have been, it seems that Castro was an avid reader—“ours is an intellectual friendship,” Gabriel García Márquez once said—and he has been tied to a number of literary figures over the years, with varying degrees of importance, not to mention veracity. Here's a brief history of Castro’s relationships, whether good, bad, or not actually very real, with some of the most famous writers of our time.
Read more: http://lithub.com/on-fidel-castros-friendships-with-literary-giants/?source=Snapzu

Netflix says it is finally adding offline playback

FINALLY. Netflix is letting us save shows to watch offline.
Read more: https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/30/netflix-adding-offline-playback-mode/?source=Snapzu

‘Born a Crime,’ Trevor Noah’s Raw Account of Life Under Apartheid

His memoir provides a harrowing look, through the prism of Mr. Noah’s family, at life in South Africa under apartheid, and the country’s entry into a postapartheid era.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/28/books/review-born-a-crime-trevor-noahs-raw-account-of-life-under-apartheid.html?source=Snapzu

Louisa May Alcott, Servant

She’s best known as the intrepid author of "Little Women," but Louisa May Alcott was once a domestic servant.
Read more: http://daily.jstor.org/louisa-may-alcott-servant/?source=Snapzu

Asteroids are not the only threat to life from space

We think of outer space as distant and unreachable, but in fact events out in the cosmos may have helped and hindered the evolution of life on Earth. By Philip Ball.
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161125-events-in-space-may-have-changed-the-course-of-evolution?ocid=fbert?source=Snapzu

Parks, Squares and Alleys - We're Not Just Friends

CBC asks for $400M to go ad-free

CBC/Radio Canada has submitted a position paper to the federal government proposing the public broadcaster move to an ad-free model, similar to the one used to pay for the BBC in the United Kingdom, at a cost of about $400 million in additional funding. "We are at a critical juncture in our evolution, continuing to operate under a business model and cultural policy framework that is profoundly broken," says the CBC's document, released on Monday afternoon. "At the same time, other nations are moving their cultural agendas forward successfully — and reaping the benefits of strong, stable, well-funded public broadcasters."
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/cbc-radio-canada-ad-free-proposal-1.3871077?source=Snapzu

The Plot to Kill Martin Luther King: Survived Shooting, Was Murdered in Hospital

MLK was murdered in a conspiracy instigated by then FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and that also involved the U.S. military, the Memphis Police and “Dixie Mafia” crime figures in Memphis, Tennessee… By Craig McKee.
Read more: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-plot-to-kill-martin-luther-king-survived-shooting-was-murdered-in-hospital-an-interview-with-william-pepper/5544005?source=Snapzu

Tuesday, 29 November 2016

The Surprisingly Complex Principles of a Successful Picture Book

A look at the nuts and bolts of children’s literature from children's book editor Melissa Manlove.
Read more: https://medium.com/chronicle-books/the-surprisingly-complex-principles-of-a-successful-picture-book-da7b0b041fbd#.hwwistugh?source=Snapzu

At least 75 killed as plane carrying Brazilian soccer club team crashes in Colombia

A chartered plane carrying the Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense crashed in Colombia near the city of Medellín on Tuesday morning.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/colombia-plane-crash-carrying-squad-from-top-brazilian-football-team-chapecoense-survivors-found-2016-11?source=Snapzu

The earworms you can't get out of your head

If you've ever had a song stuck in your head you'll know it's annoying. But as Dr Karl Kruszelnicki explains, it might be an evolutionary way of keeping us alert to attack or stay focused during repetitive tasks.
Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/greatmomentsinscience/the-earworms-you-cant-get-out-of-your-head/8064664?source=Snapzu

Ivanka Trump’s Terrible Book Helps Explain the Trump-Family Ethos

What can a woman born with a silver spoon in her mouth teach people who use plastic forks to eat salads at their desks?
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/ivanka-trumps-terrible-book-helps-explain-the-trump-family-ethos?source=Snapzu

AKIRA: How To Animate Light

A Brilliant Mind’s Pauses: The Fiction of Russia’s Greatest Poet

Bob Blaisdell praises the prose of Russia’s greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin: Pushkin is a terrible model for writers: the prose is lively, amusing, idiomatic, clear, charming. Nobody can write as beautifully as he, so why bother? When Tolstoy reread Pushkin’s tales, novellas, and “fragments” (as they’re called), in March 1873, he immediately abandoned a painstaking historical novel and started one that became Anna Karenina. Okay, for Tolstoy, Pushkin was a wonderful model. Pushkin’s fictional fragments, by the way, are only incomplete, not unfinished; they’re brilliant up to their last phrase.
Read more: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/brilliant-minds-pauses-fiction-russias-greatest-poet/?source=Snapzu

Bike balancing 200m high up

2016: A Big Year for Shakespeare First Folios

With 2016 marking the 400th anniversary of his death, it was a great year for the discovery, digitization, and exhibition of Shakespeare First Folios.
Read more: https://www.laserfiche.com/simplicity/2016-big-year-shakespeare-first-folios/?source=Snapzu

Monday, 28 November 2016

Stairway to Heaven

Millions Have Dyslexia, Few Understand It

It's the most common learning disability, yet it's still hard to answer the question: What is it? An NPR reporter who has dyslexia talks with other people — young and old — in search of answers.
Read more: http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/11/28/502601662/millions-have-dyslexia-few-understand-it?source=Snapzu

Sunday, 27 November 2016

Eggleston’s Empty America

In William Eggleston’s The Democratic Forest: Selected Works, the photographer’s charge to himself seems to be, “Make a picture of nothing at all,” the emptiness takes on a special character. By Alexander Nemerov.
Read more: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/11/13/william-eggleston-empty-america/?source=Snapzu

For the art lover, the naturalist, the child in your life, a new book on Edward Lear

Known for his nonsense poems — think the Pobble Who has No Toes — Edward Lear was also a gifted artist, whose works are collected in ‘The Natural History of Edward Lear.’
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/for-the-art-lover-the-naturalist-the-child-in-your-life-a-new-book-on-edward-lear/2016/11/23/62ef9dec-adce-11e6-977a-1030f822fc35_story.html?source=Snapzu

Moroccan state TV shows women how to hide signs of domestic violence

Women in Morocco have reacted in horror after a programme on state television demonstrated how they could use makeup to cover up evidence of domestic violence. The segment in the daily programme Sabahiyat, on Channel 2M, showed a smiling makeup artist demonstrating how to mask marks of beating, on a woman with her face made up to appear swollen and covered with fake black and blue bruises.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/27/moroccan-state-tv-shows-women-how-to-hide-domestic-violence?source=Snapzu

Photographs of historical England 'challenge Downton Abbey myth'

Images of factories, schools, universities and civic buildings rising among old streetscapes – but also of rotting houses, barefoot children and faces pinched with poverty – have been unearthed from millions of photographs of late 19th- and early 20th-century England. Philip Davies, an architectural historian, spent seven years trawling through the photographs, compiling the best 1,500 into a 558-page book titled "Lost England."
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/nov/27/photographs-of-historic-england-challenge-downton-abbey-myth?source=Snapzu

PG Wodehouse secures redemption as British Library acquires priceless archive

The author’s reputation, long tarnished by charges of Nazi collaboration, will be restored as his papers find a new home.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/27/pg-wodehouse-archive-british-library-redemption-nazi-collaboration?source=Snapzu

Patrick Watson - Lighthouse

On a beautiful evening in September Patrick Watson & his band took to the Village Underground Stage to perform a short set.
Read more: http://snapzu.com/gladsdotter/patrick-watson-lighthouse?source=Snapzu

Supertramp - Take The Long Way Home

Finnish Metal band remakes Bomfunk MC's Freestyler music video

Party like it's 1999: Finnish power metal band Battledragon covers and remakes Bomfunk MC's video from a bygone era of Minidisk Walkmans and cool remotes. Here it is: Finland lacks an internationally known music scene compared to, say, Sweden which has produced hit phenomena ever since the days of ABBA. A specific genre is something of an exception: Finland is estimated to have more metal bands per capita than any other country. Some of these bands are wildly successful within their genre.
Read more: http://inktank.fi/metal-cover-metal-bomfunk-mc-freestyler-battledragon-finnish/?source=Snapzu

Adam Curtis and the Secret History of Everything

In the British filmmaker’s epic documentaries, the world as we know it is pulled back to reveal a complex web of history, technology and power. By Jonathan Lethem.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/30/magazine/adam-curtis-documentaries.html?_r=2?source=Snapzu

“The Hanging of the Schoolmarm”

Fiction: “The schoolmarm’s just showing off again, making their brains ache, unrepentant criminal that she is.”
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/28/the-hanging-of-the-schoolmarm?source=Snapzu

Saturday, 26 November 2016

Ron Glass, Emmy-Nominated Actor Known for ‘Barney Miller’ and ‘Firefly,’ Dies at 71

Ron Glass, a prolific TV actor known for playing Ron Harris in the sitcom “Barney Miller” and Shepherd Derrial Book in “Firefly,” has died. He was 71. The actor’s rep confirmed the death to Variety, but had no further details regarding the cause or location.
Read more: http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/ron-glass-dead-barney-miller-firefly-dies-1201927179/?source=Snapzu

Fidel Castro Biography

This is a beautifully made documentary packed with rare archive footage and photographs. It shows Castro's childhood, his recklessness as a youth, his blossoming talents at the University of Havana and then his swift and complex ride to lawyer, jailbird, guerilla, politician and revolutionary. Adored and deplored, Castro's life makes compelling viewing.
Read more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC4hNWzyCzU?source=Snapzu

A Bronx Librarian Keen on Teaching Homeless Children a Lasting Love of Books

Every Wednesday, Colbert Nembhard visits the Crotona Inn shelter, serving as a model for a New York City literacy effort geared toward boys and girls living in transient conditions.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/nyregion/a-bronx-librarian-keen-on-teaching-homeless-children-a-lasting-love-of-books.html?source=Snapzu

The literary glamour of madness

Take a quick glance at the annals of literature and you can find madness in bucketloads. But “madness”, in the terms dictated by this rich literary history, bears no real relation to the objective reality of mental illness. The day to day business of mental illness is hard, boring and unrewarding, and though it can certainly provide benefits – increased empathy for other people’s pain, an ability to withstand intense periods of suffering – it rarely offers profound revelations about the human condition.
Read more: http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/literary-madness/?source=Snapzu

100 Notable Books of 2016

The year’s notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, selected by the editors of The New York Times Book Review.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/books/review/100-notable-books-of-2016.html?source=Snapzu

Leah Remini Demands the Church of Scientology Pay Her $1.5 Million for Damages

The premiere of Leah Remini’s docu-series on A&E about the Church of Scientology might only be a week away, but that doesn’t mean that the two parties aren’t still duking it out. In fact, the church has allegedly tried preventing the show from airing and communication between the two parties has gotten so bad that Remini is now demanding the church pay her $1.5 million in damages.
Read more: http://www.vulture.com/2016/11/leah-remini-demands-church-of-scientology-to-pay-damages.html?mid=twitter_nymag?source=Snapzu

Are humans evolving beyond the need to tell stories?

Neuroscientists who insist technology is changing our brains may have it wrong. What if we are switching from books to digital entertainment because of a change in our need to communicate? By Will Self.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/25/will-self-humans-evolving-need-stories?source=Snapzu

Friday, 25 November 2016

Syrian girl thanks JK Rowling for sending Harry Potter books

A seven-year-old girl in the Syrian city of Aleppo has thanked JK Rowling for sending her the Harry Potter books. Bana Alabed says she likes to read "to forget the war" around her, as Aleppo is regularly bombed. Her mother Fatemah tweeted the author to say she had watched the films and Bana would like to read the novels. JK Rowling responded and digital copies of the books have been sent to Bana, who has shared pictures of herself reading them on a mobile phone.
Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38101262/syrian-girl-thanks-jk-rowling-for-sending-harry-potter-books?source=Snapzu

The ACLU Goes to War

“At a parent conference last week, one of my son’s teachers suggested my wife and I play a card game with Pasha to improve his fine motor skills. She called the game, ‘Hi-Lo.’ After hearing the description, I said, ‘oh, I used to play that as a child; we called it ‘war.’’ ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We don’t use that word here.’” By Philip Bobbitt.
Read more: https://www.justsecurity.org/34885/aclu-war/?source=Snapzu

The map-maker’s task may never be done

Three new atlases of strange, improbable places show that, even with GPS, islands have a weird habit of appearing and disappearing.
Read more: http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/11/the-map-makers-task-may-never-be-done/?source=Snapzu

Making a Man of the Mad Monk

Everyone knows the “Mad Monk” Rasputin. But how many know that the man left behind a devoted wife and three children — an odd legacy for any monk, mad or otherwise? Douglas Smith’s new biography of “Mad Monk” Rasputin brings him into the human realm.
Read more: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/making-man-mad-monk/?source=Snapzu

Shortly after my thirteenth birthday, my mother announced somewhat mysteriously that it was time for me “to get to know the books.” By Nir Baram.
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-brief-history-of-death?intcid=mod-latest?source=Snapzu

Barbaric Beauty

We might applaud the tall, blond and ruggedly handsome Vikings of pop culture as being historically accurate, but authentic engagement with the past requires more than just convincing hair and make-up, says Oren Falk.
Read more: http://www.historytoday.com/oren-falk/barbaric-beauty?source=Snapzu