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Washington Post
25 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
These bold stories capture the strangeness of digital identity
Both chronologically and stylistically, the writer Ed Park feels quintessentially Gen X. Obsessed with authenticity, technology, and questions of family and loneliness, he seems both fascinated and repulsed by these changing times. In his first collection of short stories, 'An Oral History of Atlantis,' Park interrogates the tension between digital representation and the real, the translated and the untranslated, the metaphorical and the literal. Lost films, found texts, Borgesian mysteries, past loves, domestic fractures, gnawing loneliness and online avatars all occur and recur, collectively assembling into something of a Parkian expanded universe. Vacillating between quasi-memoiristic first-person and bold experimentation, Park — a co-founder of the Believer and the author of the novel 'Same Bed Different Dreams,' a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize — asks how we might cope in an era when existence appears inexorably split between the material and the digital.
Wall Street Journal
16 hours ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Trump's Tariff Deals With Japan and the EU, as His Aug. 1 Deadline Nears - Opinion: Potomac Watch
Paul A. Gigot is the editorial page editor and vice president of The Wall Street Journal, a position he has held since 2001. He is responsible for the publication's editorials, op-ed articles and Opinion columnists, book reviews, arts criticism, and other Opinion content such as podcasts, videos and documentaries. He is also the host of the weekly news program, the Journal Editorial Report, on the Fox News Channel. Mr. Gigot joined the Journal in 1980 as a reporter in Chicago, and in 1982 he became the Journal's Asia correspondent, based in Hong Kong. He won an Overseas Press Club award for his reporting on the Philippines. In 1984 he was named the first editorial page editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal, based in Hong Kong. In 1987 he was assigned to Washington, where he contributed editorials and a weekly column on politics, "Potomac Watch," which won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Mr. Gigot is a graduate of Dartmouth College, where he was chairman of the daily student newspaper.
New York Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Playful Story Collection Unbound From Realism or Form
AN ORAL HISTORY OF ATLANTIS: Stories, by Ed Park Fifteen years after his comical debut novel, 'Personal Days,' skewered white-collar work culture in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, the writer and editor Ed Park published a second novel that reached beyond mundane office realities. Inventive, dense and more than 500 pages long, 'Same Bed Different Dreams' was a demanding literary collage of spy and metafiction devices, real and manufactured South Korean and Korean American history, and pop culture. It went on to become a 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist and the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for its energy, ambition and sly humor. Now Park's third book is out, a collection called 'An Oral History of Atlantis' whose 16 stories are similarly unbound by run-of-the-mill realism. Like 'Same Bed Different Dreams,' it is a pastiche of forms and nods to genre fiction, from commentaries on campy sci-fi movies to middle-aged dissections of long-gone relationships to indignant epistolary rebukes. The tales often adopt a knowing, nerd-chic irony. Characters with names like Bethany Blanket and Vernon Bodily are rendered in prose full of writerly self-deprecation and mock hipsterdom: In Portland my handler, Jonas, took me to lunch at a locavore haunt that featured seafood haggis and artisanal jelly beans. Park's flash fictions can be capsules of wit. In one, a man lists the antic behaviors of his medicated wife in a series of repeated assertions: 'The wife on Ambien hacks into my Facebook account and leaves slurs on the pages of my enemies.' The introductory story, 'A Note to My Translator,' is a critique by a disgruntled novelist of an arbitrary translation of one of his books. His lofty, antiquated diction and ego reminded me instantly of Charles Kinbote, the deranged scholar-narrator of Vladimir Nabokov's 'Pale Fire': Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
USA Today
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
The case of the missing funding: Nancy Drew filmmaker turns to fans after feds cut grant
The Trump administration cancelled millions in arts funding. A film about the beloved Nancy Drew series was on the chopping block. Cathleen O'Connell didn't need a flashlight or an amateur sleuth to grasp what it meant when the Trump administration pulled her funding for a film about fictional crime-solver Nancy Drew. Her project about the fearless detective, who was authored by multiple writers under one pen name, was all but over. The National Endowment for the Humanities terminated hundreds of grants in April, citing belt-tightening and a re-aligning of "priorities." O'Connell saw her prestigious $600,000 award disappear like a phantom in the books she adored as a child. She despaired. Then she thought: What would Nancy do? "Nancy Drew wouldn't give up," she said of the beloved literary heroine who would always crack the case. "Having had so much support of people along the way, I didn't want to let them down either." Now the filmmaker has turned to a Kickstarter campaign to make up some of the difference in funding. She lost $350,000 in federal grant money and is hoping to raise at least $95,000 by July 30 to finish the documentary she started, "Nancy Drew: The Case of the American Icon," she said. The campaign met O'Connell's original $50,000 goal in 11 days, she said. The response convinced her she could raise more and make the film she first envisioned. "Kickstarter let us get in touch with our audience, tap the fan base and get them excited about the project," she said. To the more than 400 people who have donated, she said, "I've written a thank you note to every one." 95 years of mysteries solved This year marks Nancy Drew's 95th anniversary. The series debuted in 1930 (with "The Secret of the Old Clock") and has sold more than 70 million copies over nearly a century, according to publisher Penguin Random House. Curious details tied all the books together: the luncheons with her father Carson Drew, her trusty female side kicks Bess and George, a blue roadster and a tenacity that always led Nancy to solve the mystery. In her research for the film, O'Connell found that the amateur detective – an icon of fearlessness and female ingenuity in the 20th century – was still inspiring readers in the 21st, with updated storylines, illustrated versions and new videogames. Hundreds of arts grants cancelled O'Connell won the federal humanities grant on the back of a 106-page proposal that took nearly a year to write and edit. Landing the grant was like winning the Pulitzer Prize or earning a PhD, she said. Then, at President Donald Trump's direction, billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency began searching for ways to slash federal spending. The email hit her project inbox at 11:30 p.m. on April 3. "Your grant no longer effectuates the agency's needs and priorities," said the email signed by Michael McDonald, NEH acting director, a portion of which was shared with USA TODAY. He added: "The NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President's agenda." Early on, DOGE was "still in chainsaw mode," O'Connell said. Her grant was among roughly 1,000 cancelled by the NEH. The federal agency didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. A box in the attic O'Connell, 60, grew up in rural Maine. She'd save her 25-cent weekly allowance to buy a Nancy Drew book – then $1.25 – each time a new one came out. Then she'd bury herself in the sleuth's latest adventure. Years ago, O'Connell found a box in her attic filled with yellow-bound volumes with titles like The Secret of the Forgotten City and Mystery of Crocodile Island. She knew author "Carolyn Keene" wasn't a real person but a pseudonym for a slew of hired writers. She wanted to learn more. "I wanted to watch a documentary," she said. "There wasn't one. People have asked me, 'Why are you doing this?' The question is, why hasn't this been done before?"
Iraqi News
6 days ago
- Politics
- Iraqi News
International media groups urge Israel to allow access to Gaza
Paris – International news agencies Agence France-Presse (AFP), Associated Press (AP) and Reuters as well as the BBC on Thursday called on Israel to allow journalists in and out of Gaza, which is subject to a strict blockade. 'We are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families,' the media groups said in a joint statement. They added that 'journalists endure many deprivations and hardships in war zones. We are deeply alarmed that the threat of starvation is now one of them.' 'We once again urge the Israeli authorities to allow journalists in and out of Gaza. It is essential that adequate food supplies reach the people there,' they concluded. With Gaza sealed off, many media groups around the world depend on photo, video and text coverage of the conflict provided by Palestinian reporters to international news agencies such as AFP. International criticism is growing over the plight of the more than two million Palestinian civilians in Gaza, where more than 100 aid and rights groups have warned that 'mass starvation' is spreading. Since the war started following the unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas, a small number of journalists have been able to enter Gaza only with the Israeli army and under strict military censorship rules. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in early July that more than 200 journalists had been killed in Gaza since the war began. – Evacuations – AFP news agency has published accounts of life inside Gaza from its reporters this week. It has said it is concerned about 'the appalling situation' they face due to a daily struggle to find food. 'We have no energy left due to hunger and lack of food,' said Omar al-Qattaa, a 35-year-old AFP photographer shortlisted for a Pulitzer Prize earlier this year. 'Obtaining food in Gaza is extremely difficult. Even when it is available, prices are multiplied by 100,' video journalist Youssef Hassouna said. Israel says humanitarian aid is being allowed in and accuses Hamas of exploiting civilian suffering, including by stealing food handouts to sell at inflated prices or shooting at those awaiting aid. The World Health Organization's chief warned on Wednesday of widespread starvation in Gaza, saying food deliveries into the territory were 'far below what is needed for the survival of the population'. Witnesses and Gaza's civil defence agency have repeatedly accused Israeli forces of firing on aid seekers. The UN said the military had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food since late May. AFP succeeded in evacuating eight staff members and their families from Gaza between January and April 2024, after months of effort. – 'Starving' – The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a media freedom group, said in a statement on Wednesday that Israel was 'starving Gazan journalists into silence'. 'They are not just reporters, they are frontline witnesses, abandoned as international media were pulled out and denied entry,' CPJ regional director Sara Qudah was quoted as saying. Many Palestinian journalists have spoken out or posted about their exhaustion, with Sally Thabet, a correspondent for Al-Kofiya satellite channel, fainting after a live broadcast this week, the CPJ said. Doha-based Al Jazeera, the most influential Arabic media group, also called for global action to protect Gaza's journalists on Tuesday. The channel, which has been banned in Israel, has had five of its reporters killed since the start of the conflict in what it says is a deliberate targeting campaign by Israel. In some cases, Israel has accused reporters of being 'terror operatives', such as when it killed a Gaza-based Al Jazeera staff journalist and freelancer last year — allegations condemned by the Qatari news network. 'We know that probably most journalists inside Gaza are operating under the auspices of Hamas, and until Hamas is destroyed, they will not be allowed to report freely,' Israeli government spokesman David Mercer told a press conference last December.
