Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Friday, August 24, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
THOM STEINBECK TACKLES TEXAS
Author Thomas Steinbeck angry at the 'profoundly tragic' use of his father John's Of Mice and Men character Lennie Small by Texas to define learning difficulties in Marvin Wilson execution case.
John Steinbeck’s son has criticised the State of Texas over its use of his father’s fiction in death row cases.
Texas has been using the mental disability of Lennie Small, the Nobel prize-winning author's fictional character in Of Mice and Men, to define learning difficulties and thus to justify its execution of Marvin Wilson, who was put on death row for the 1992 murder of a police informant.
In a statement, Steinbeck's son Thomas Steinbeck, an author himself, said that if his father were alive today, he would be “deeply angry and ashamed to see his work used in this way.” He called the situation "insulting, outrageous, ridiculous and profoundly tragic.”
He furthermore added that John Steinbeck’s work “was certainly not meant to be scientific, and the character of Lennie was never intended to be used to diagnose a medical condition like intellectual disability."
Saturday, August 4, 2012
VINCENT VAN GOGH MAY HAVE BEEN MURDERED
The Asylum, St-Remy
Painting: Thomas Van Stein
He was angry, paranoid and threw fits.
He couldn’t hold a job.
He was a loner and had no friends.
He was alienated from his family, and ended up in the insane asylum.
In a psychotic rage, he cut off half his ear.
It is now believed that he suffered from epilepsy, which brought on many of his emotional difficulties.
His relationship with his father was a nightmare.
At one point he tried to emulate him and become a minister, like he was.
That failed.
His father died of a stroke, and the family blamed Vincent for it.
Their constant arguing killed him, said his mother.
Vincent never got over it.
He felt guilty until the day he died. He was only 37 years old.
“60 Minutes” just ran a portrait of Van Gogh in which they dispute the long standing theory that he committed suicide.
Instead, they say he was killed by a couple of kids in the French village where he lived; kids who relentlessly teased and haunted him.
They fumbled around with a gun and shot the artist, who then made it look like he turned the weapon against himself. He wanted to die.
Friday, August 3, 2012
MACHIAVELLI'S THE PRINCE, FIRST EDITION, EXPECTED TO FETCH $45,000
Painting: Thomas Van Stein
A RARE first edition of a seminal Renaissance work is expected to fetch up to £30,000 at auction after being discovered hidden in a pile of books.
The copy of The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli is going under the hammer after being unearthed by Keys Fine Art Auctioneers in East Anglia.
Dating to 1640, the 300-page book measures 14.5cm by 9cm and is in good condition. It was found among prayer books at a residential home in Norfolk.
MARFA, TEXAS: REFUGE FROM FACEBOOK
Painting: Thomas Van Stein
Not long after Katherine Losse left her Silicon Valley career and moved to this West Texas town for its artsy vibe and crisp desert air, she decided to make friends the old-fashioned way, in person. So she went to her Facebook page and, with a series of keystrokes, shut it off.
The move carried extra import because Losse had been the social network’s 51st employee and rose to become founder Mark Zuckerberg’s personal ghostwriter. But Losse gradually soured on the revolution in human relations she witnessed from within.
That brought her to Marfa, a town of 2,000 people in an area so remote that astronomers long have come here for its famously dark night sky, beyond the light pollution that’s a byproduct of modern life.
Losse’s mission was oddly parallel. She wanted to live, at least for a time, as far as practical from the world’s relentless digital glow.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
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