Obama, gleefully tossing remaining fucks out of window. https://t.co/osH6aCO1bg
— Ana Marie Cox (@anamariecox) September 7, 2015
Stephen King to receive National Medal of Arts from Barack Obama http://t.co/L2ZxHektdh
— Michiko Kakutani (@michikokakutani) September 7, 2015
From the Guardian article:
When Stephen King was announced as the winner of a medal for distinguished contribution to American letters in 2003, the eminent literary critic Harold Bloom said it was “a testimony to [the] idiocy” of the awarding organisation, the National Book Awards. On 10 September, no less than Barack Obama will present the novelist with the United States’ National Medal of Arts…
“For decades, his works of horror, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy have terrified and delighted audiences around the world,” said the National Endowment for the Arts, in a citation that will be read by Obama on 10 September – a far cry from Bloom’s criticisms in 2003, when the critic and academic told the New York Times that King wrote “what used to be called penny dreadfuls”, adding that “that [the National Book Awards] could believe that there is any literary value there or any aesthetic accomplishment or signs of an inventive human intelligence is simply a testimony to their own idiocy’’…
The ceremony will also see National Humanities Medals given to authors including Jhumpa Lahiri, for “enlarging the human story [and] illuminat[ing] the Indian-American experience in beautifully wrought narratives of estrangement and belonging”, Larry McMurtry, whose “work evokes the character and drama of the American west with stories that examine quintessentially American lives”, and Annie Dillard, who “in poetry and in prose … has invited us to stand humbly before the stark beauty of creation”…
Complete list of the new winners at the NEA site here.
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Apart from tweaking the Very Serious People (always a worthy endeavor), what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Tuesday Evening Open Thread: Penny Dreadfuls for the WinPost + Comments (153)