Mightier Than the Sword

Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States, died today at the age of 87, and the nation and world will miss his presence.

His contributions to our society, however, will live on forever. (Read the Associated Press obit here.) Recently, the History Channel aired the much-anticipated and  thoroughly stirring “The People Speak”—a visually and audibly compelling 101 course in democracy and American history based on Zinn’s important work. So we present in his honor this performance from the aforementioned documentary, by an artist much admired by The Madness of Art, that in many ways sums up the spirit of the man who used his art to seek and deliver truth. Read more…

For the past 50 years, “The Elements of Style” has served as the de facto Holy Writ for writers, teachers and students on matters of grammar, usage and style. With 10 million copies sold in the last half-century, William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White’s enduring classic is deserving of a golden anniversary ”celebration” and the accompanying hype. Or is it? Read more…

Top Journalism Prizes Underscore Industry’s Plight

It’s certainly no secret that the newspaper industry faces unprecedented perils. And that’s probably an understatement, if recent developments—regularly declining circulation, plummeting profits, shrinking staff sizes (a result of repeated, substantial layoffs and a more voluntary exodus of journalists out of the industry), the closing of century-old newspapers—are any indication. The “Pressure on the Presses” might prove too much to bear, as some predict that End Times are near for print newspapers. The announcement of the winners of the Pulitzer Prizes today underscored this reality—and how the conventional response of management at newspapers across the country might just be the death blow. Read more…

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky,
Notable Wordsmiths Read ‘Poems Out Loud’

Robert Pinsky, U.S.Poet Laureate from 1997 to 2000 and editor of the recently released Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud, launched a great new site earlier this month to accompany the collection and to celebrate National Poetry Month. Read more…

“April is the cruelest month.”—from T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”

It’s also National Poetry Month, and the Academy of American Poets (which started the annual celebration in 1996 as a means to rekindle interest in the art and to highlight its important role in American culture) is offering a Poem-A-Day throughout the month—a new poem direct to you inbox to begin your day. Read more…

For anyone who toils in the creative realm, surrounding oneself with sources of inspiration is vital to survival.

While the muse often manifests in the strangest places at the most unexpected times, she’s notoriously fickle, often ignoring even the most desperate distress calls. Mystifying and unreliable is the muse, and creators cannot idly wait for some outside force to trigger the cogs of the imagination.

Art begets art.

Yet, the creative process inherently demands recurrent sparks of inspiration. The presence of art, in its multitudinous incarnations, emits such an energy to kindle the nerve endings of the mind’s eye. Personal libraries—of books, of music, of movies, of art and other creations—offer a milieu conducive to creative work, filling a space with spirits that urge us to imagine and re-imagine, to continually seek new knowledge, to see the possibilities in and of our artistic endeavors. Art begets art, creativity breeds creativity.

Jay Walker knows this.

For more than 30 years, throughout his adult life, Walker has been amassing a large collection of books; for the last 20 years, he has added countless artifacts, along with rare books and manuscripts, to his treasury. Without a dedicated room to house his growing collection, books and other items spread throughout his home, occupying any suitable space in various rooms. But Walker had an idea—one that would not only solve the practical issue of storage but also bring together the pieces of his vast, unique collection in inspiring yet functional fashion.

“I’m an inventor by trade,” said Walker, founder of Priceline.com and Walker Digital’s chairman/lead inventor, during our conversation last week. “Why not build a library of human imagination?” Read more…

Supporters of the arts received good news late Friday when the Senate voted 60 to 38 in favor of a $787 billion economic stimulus bill following a 246-183 House vote earlier in the day. The bill included $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, which seemed to be in serious jeopardy mid-week. Read more…

Critics of the economic stimulus plan (read: impotent Republicans in Congress) have, throughout the debate over the size and scope of the package, cherry-picked various programs—ones, of course, that they don’t like or that run counter to their ideology—as evidence of “pork.” And in some cases, both in the House and especially in the Senate, Democrats have caved, stripping billions of dollars from the package in the name of bipartisanship, despite the obvious ways in which these programs would have played important roles in moving this country forward during tough economic times. Read more…

Despite the increasingly unambiguous value of arts education in American schools, thanks to scores of studies and surveys in recent years, government funding of arts education, and the arts in general, seems to ignore those established, consequential benefits—not only for students that are directly impacted, but all of society. Read more…

A Conversation With Michael J. Phillips,
Founder and Editor of Bukowski.net

From the moment I read my first Bukowski poem (“so you want to be a writer?”) in my first Bukowski book (“sifting through the madness for the Word, the line, the way”), I was hooked. 

I had never read anything like it, and I wanted more—and more. 

Over the next several years, I would buy a new Bukowski book—a collection of poems, columns, stories, letters, essays, or a full-length novel—whenever possible. The sheer volume of his work is matched only by the quality of it all. As my writing partner (who first recommended Bukowski) and I often do during late-night, wine-drinking phone conversations, picking any page number from any collection results in the same reaction: “Wow!” Read more…