The Carlton Tavern, Maida Vale, London. Photo credit: Steve Reed.
Recent links of note:
The Mad Challenge of Translating “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”
Andrea Appleton, Smithsonian
Translation is rarely an easy task. The very thing that makes languages so delightful—their peculiarities and eccentricities—is the potential undoing of any translation project. So what to do about a book that is incredibly dependent on wordplay and cultural references? Andrea Appleton investigates the ways in which translators have dealt with the problem of Alice.
Order, Please, Not Utopia
Myron Magnet, City Journal
No New Yorker can fail to have witnessed the growing unrest in our city’s fair streets. Previously we’ve touted the work of City Journal’s eminent Myron Magnet, one of the soundest voices in urban commentary, and Mr. Magnet has delivered again, making an impassioned plea for a sane return to the policies that not so long ago made New York the safest, most pleasant big city in the world.
The lamentable loss of Britain’s pubs
Gavin Stamp, Apollo
Noted architectural historian Gavin Stamp wonders why pubs, that most British of architectural forms, suffer from neglect in conservation circles. Specifically, Stamp laments the impending loss of midcentury modern pubs, curious combinations of then-fresh architecture and traditional English culture. With drinking habits continuing to trend towards the domestic, rather than the communal, Stamp’s fears may be justified.
Metropolitan Museum of Art breaks attendance record
Julia Halperin, The Art Newspaper
News from the museum world is not all gloomy. The Met, which began tracking visitors over forty years ago, admitted six and a third million visitors this year, besting its previous record, set in 2012 (prior to the museum’s opening seven days a week). The museum attributes the success to the Costume Institute’s exhibition China: Through the Looking Glass, which, coupled with record attendance at the Frick owing to last year’s Dutch paintings exhibit, proves that a major exhibit can still bring the masses out for a day at the museum.
From our pages:
Bellow’s ornithologists
Carl Rollyson
A review of The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune, 1815-1964, by Zachary Leader.