When you spend your days writing about culture, broadly defined, the strangest juxtapositions start to present themselves. Here at Flavorpill, where we might hop from Katherine Mansfield to Katy Perry in the space of a single post, we’re always noticing the ways in which high culture and pop culture complement each other. That, perhaps, is why it recently occurred to us that Ron Swanson and Ernest Hemingway must have wildly similar personalities — which led us to the thought experiment below: TV Characters and Their Literary Counterparts. Follow along with us after the jump, where we compare modernist authors to fictional teenagers and great humorists to fake-news hosts, and add your own pairings in the comments. Read More »
Erecting a statue of someone to honor their memory and ensure their immortality seems a little dated in the digital age. But history buffs and travel-junkies still go thousands of miles to see monuments to their favorite authors, artists, and historical figures, so there must be something elementally compelling about it. Maybe it’s just us, but we think there’s something satisfying about a life-size (or larger than life) statue of a beloved figure, able to be touched and taking up space in the world. To that end, we’ve collected a series of statues of some of our favorite authors, from the surreal (Kafka) to the cheeky (Hemingway) to the monumentally brooding (Tolstoy). Of course, if you’re famous enough to have one statue erected in your honor, you’re probably famous enough to have more than one, so of course some of these sculptures are only one in a series of renditions (we’re looking at you, Shakespeare), but they happen to be our favorites. Click through to catch a glimpse of some famous authors in the bronze, and let us know if we’ve missed any of your favorite literary sculptures in the comments!
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The grandson of famed playwright Oscar Wilde claims a new play, Constance, set to open on Friday at London’s King’s Head Theater is not Wilde’s “final play” as the theater company boasts, the Guardian reports. “It is dishonest to foist this on the public,” Merlin Holland says, calling the play “a pretty appalling piece of work” that is “marginally altered in order to sound a bit like Oscar Wilde.” The problem is that, although Wilde sketched the plot for Constance, it was actually written by several other playwrights before it became the play that is about to open.
“I’m completely comfortable calling it a play by Oscar Wilde,” says Adam Spreadbury-Maher, the artistic director of the theater. He adds that the production is careful to credit the lineage of the play and the various hands it passed through. But he isn’t doing himself any favors when he says the production is similar to how Damien Hirst “doesn’t paint all his paintings.” Probably not the best analogy to use when trying to convince people to pay good money to see Oscar Wilde’s last play. [via ArtsBeat]
We hate to be the ones to say it, but the end of the summer romance is nigh, dear readers. As August becomes September, a noticeable chill lingers in the air; the cold creeps in slowly, hardening hearts and delivering sang-froid to young and old alike. In preparation, we suggest you arm yourselves with our modest arsenal of literary quotes that can be administered whenever you feel the time is right. Good luck, and let us know in the comments section what quotes have helped you get through a difficult breakup.
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Dandyism is more than just a dress code. A dandy believes that, through a refined command of dress and manners, he or she can impress their greatness upon the world. This meant that a dandy could live a rather indolent, carefree lifestyle and still be regarded as influential and powerful despite not being born into wealth. It makes sense that so many writers were of the dandy sort, given the meager income their career path promised. This pursuit of elegance gave them access to bon vivance in Paris, lifestyles of jet-setting between the Swiss Alps and the Riviera, summers in coastal cottages, or early retirement (before retirement was even deemed acceptable). Dandyism is a interplay between fashion and mannerism, a perfect blend of style, sophistication, and caprice. Here we take a look at 10 authors who successfully made elegance, not just writing, an esteemed profession.
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If you thought the version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray we’ve been reading for the past 130 years was transgressive for its time, you apparently ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The Guardian reports on the recent publication of an uncensored version of Wilde’s fin-de-siècle masterpiece, which was cut because its editor believed it contained “a number of things which an innocent woman would make an exception to.” As a result, the explicitly gay bits, mentions of Dorian’s “mistresses,” and anything else judged to be too “decadent” (read: French) had to go.
Of course, Wilde’s most risqué passages are pretty tame by today’s standards. The Guardian quotes the moment when Basil Hallward confesses his affection to Dorian: “It is quite true I have worshipped you with far more romance of feeling than a man should ever give to a friend. Somehow I have never loved a woman.” [via io9]
Santino Fontana and David Furr star in the new Broadway production of Oscar Wilde’s classic play, The Importance of Being Earnest, playing Algernon Moncrieff and John Worthing respectively. It seems that they (understandably) can’t quite get enough of their characters, and so have also embarked on a side project called “Jersey Shore Gone Wilde,” a five part series in which the pair reenact actual transcripts of Jersey Shore episodes ‘in the style of Oscar Wilde.’ Obviously, it’s basically the best thing we’ve ever seen and totally makes us want to go see them on Broadway. Which likely is the whole point, so good show, fellows. Tip top. Watch the entire series after the jump.
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Today in things that are absurdly relevant to our interests: Illustrator Chet Phillips uses the program Painter to create animal portraits that range from Sinister Simians to Wrestle Pets. But, predictably enough, we have fallen in love with Phillips’s Literary Pets series, which transforms dozens of famous authors, from the Middle Ages through the present, into cats and dogs. Meet Oscar Wildecat, Dorothy Purrker, Joyce Feral Oates, and their four-legged friends after the jump, then click over to Etsy to buy an affordable print and see even more images from the series. For the indecisive among us, there are even two decks of Literary Pets trading cards.
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Wooing is hard work. Inevitably all of us will be crushed by disappointment from time to time when a chosen paramour rejects us with a single, cutting remark. However, we are almost certain here at Flavorpill that having a background in literature will work in your favor, whether you find yourself pining at a bar, a café, or at an awkward house party filled with graduate students clutching red plastic cups — their eyes glazing over as another person enters the throng and attempts to discuss his thesis on Levinas’s idea of irreducible relations. Rally against this stagnation, readers, and use the quotes below to find love… but don’t blame us if you get slapped.
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It’s hard being a member of the creative class sometimes. Writers throughout history have been known to run afoul of the law, with charges ranging from disorderly conduct to murder. With the advent of the mug shot in the late 1800s, a latent image emerged of these various offenses, realized through this new, curious medium. In On Photography, Susan Sontag wrote, “The camera has the power to catch so-called normal people in such a way as to make them look abnormal.” But what if you’re unusual to begin with — what does the camera capture then? The following is a list of the top 10 authors to have walked the line.
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