Literary Profiles: The “Sparkling, Perfect” Prose Of P.G. Wodehouse (BBC)

From BBC Culture (June 2, 2020):

P.G._Wodehouse_-_My_Man_Jeeves_-_1st_American_edition_(1920_printing)_-_CropWith every sparkling joke, every well-meaning and innocent character, every farcical tussle with angry swans and pet Pekingese, every utopian description of a stroll around the grounds of a pal’s stately home or a flutter on the choir boys’ hundred yards handicap at a summer village fete, he wanted to whisk us far away from our worries.

If we’re talking about culture that makes people happy, we have to start with the works of PG Wodehouse. There are two reasons why. One reason is that making people happy was Wodehouse’s overriding ambition. The other reason is that he was better at it than any other writer in history.

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P. G. Wodehouse: A Brief History

P.G. WodehouseThe author of almost a hundred books and the creator of Jeeves, Blandings Castle, Psmith, Ukridge, Uncle Fred and Mr Mulliner, P. G. Wodehouse was born in 1881 and educated at Dulwich College. After two years with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank he became a full-time writer, contributing to a variety of periodicals including Punch and the Globe. He married in 1914.

As well as his novels and short stories, he wrote lyrics for musical comedies with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, and at one time had five musicals running simultaneously on Broadway. His time in Hollywood also provided much source material for fiction.

At the age of ninty-three, in the New Year’s Honours List of 1975, he received a long-overdue knighthood, only to die on St Valentine’s Day some forty-five days later.

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World’s Best Gardens: “Bowood House – Private Walled Garden”, England

From The Tatler (June 10, 2020):

The Marquess and Marchioness of Lansdowne’s private walled garden is the jewel in this botanical crown. Attached to the back of the main house, the garden is surrounded by a 16-foot-high wall and is made up of four distinct one-acre squares. It includes a 250-metre formal border, a picking garden, working greenhouses, chickens and a kitchen garden full of fruits and vegetables. 

Wisteria Bodnantense framing the doorway out of the walled garden towards the lake - Bodwood House England - Tatler - June 10 2020

The Hot border designed by Rosie Abel Smith with a mixture of wonderful purples, oranges and reds seen through an arch of Laburnum Vossii - Bodwood House Private Walled Garden - Tatler - June 10 2020There is a feeling of mounting enchantment as you wind along the drive to Bowood House, the Wiltshire home of the Marquess and Marchioness of Lansdowne. It could be meandering through the dense pine forest, thick with wild garlic underfoot, that begins to stir the senses; or the sight of the sculptural tulip trees; and the heady scent of the roses is certainly tantalising.

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Tiny Homes: Norwegian “Norske Mikrohus” – High Quality Natural Materials

Norske Mikrohus Tiny Homes InteriorNorske Mikrohus is a Norwegian tiny home producer focused on the future and the climate. Our micro homes are built from natural materials, have a moderate energy consumption and a minimal footprint. Micro homes show us that it is possible to build small yet maintain a comfortable living standard.

We build houses of high quality, made with natural materials by skilled carpenters. We build for the harsh Norwegian climate and our homes are comfortable year around.

Micro homes are functional, complete dwellings with a space for daily activities, sleeping and a full size kitchen and bathroom. We have space for both a dishwasher and a washing machine. We aim for smart, multi-functional solution and build the furniture ourselves for better use of the space.

Norske Mikrohus LogoOur houses comes with electric floor heating as standard, and combined with a small oven or a wood stove, you are guaranteed to stay warm all thought winter. Our biggest model has a total of 22 square meters floor area.

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New Art Books: “Bosch – The Complete Works”

Bosch - The Complete Works - Stefan Fischer - TaschenA bird-monster devouring sinners, naked bodies in tantric contortions, a pair of ears brandishing a sharpened blade: with just 20 paintings and nine drawings to his name, Netherlandish visionary Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516) secured his place as a pillar of art history. To this day, the painter par excellence of hell and its demons continues to puzzle and enthrall scholars, artists, designers, and musicians alike.
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Based on the best-selling XXL edition, which saw TASCHEN commission new and exclusive photography of details and recently restored works, this large-scale monograph presents Bosch’s complete oeuvre. Texts from art historian and Bosch expert Stefan Fischer dissect the many compelling elements that populate each scene, from hybrid creatures of man and beast to Bosch’s pictorial use of proverbs and idioms. By tying together the elusive threads of his oeuvre into one exhaustive overview, this book reveals just what it was about Bosch and his painting that proved so immensely influential.

Bosch - The Complete Works

Features:

  • Impeccable full-page reproductions celebrating the artist’s staggering compositional scope
  • Enlarged details unveiling the most intricate and bizarre scenes as much as the unsuspected technical minutiae, from subtle brush-strokes to the grain of the canvas
  • fold-out spread drawn from the legendary Last Judgement
  • special chapter focusing on Bosch’s most famous work, the mesmerizing and terrifying triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights

The author

Stefan Fischer studied art history, history, and classical archaeology in Münster, Amsterdam, and Bonn. In 2009 he completed his doctoral thesis “Hieronymus Bosch: Malerei als Vision, Lehrbild und Kunstwerk.” His specialist fields are Netherlandish painting of the 15th to the 17th centuries and museology.

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Neuroscience: High-Sugar Diets Suppress Dopamine, Leading To Overeating

From Phys.org/Univ. of Michigan (June 9, 2020):

High-Sugar Diet Dampens Release of Dopamine Causing Overeating - Univ of Michigan - Credit Christina May and Monica Dus“On a high-sugar diet, we find that the fruit flies’ dopaminergic neurons are less active, because the high sugar intake decreases the intensity of the sweetness signal that comes from the mouth,” Dus said. “Animals use this feedback from dopamine to make predictions about how rewarding or filling a food will be. In the high-sugar diet flies, this process is broken—they get less dopamine neuron activation and so end up eating more than they need, which over time makes them gain weight.”

It is well known that consuming food and drink high in sugar is not great for us, but scientists are continuing to unravel the intricacies of how the sweet stuff drives negative health outcomes. The latest finding comes from researchers at the University of Michigan, who through studies in fruit flies have found that excess amounts of sugar can shut down crucial neural circuits linked to regulating satiety, possibly leading to overeating in humans.

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Travels With A Curator: “Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon” (Video)

In this episode of “Travels with a Curator,” Curator Aimee Ng takes viewers on a journey to Lisbon’s Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, the home of an extraordinary private collection that, like the Frick, was made available for the enjoyment of the public after the collector’s death. This is a museum about discovery and movement, a place of marvelous encounters between the Old Masters and modernist architecture. Peek inside this spectacular museum—you may recognize a certain marble sculpture whose terracotta sister resides at the Frick.

 

20th Century Art: “Italian Futurism – Umberto Boccioni” (Christie’s)

An introduction to Futurism, the dynamic movement that revolutionised Italian art at the beginning of the twentieth century. Obsessed with speed, the Futurists created art that captured the dawning of a new age. Also included is a closer look at Umberto Boccioni a founding member of the group, who died tragically young during the First World War. An extract from the Christie’s Education online course, Modern Art.

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Healthcare: “Rethinking How Hospitals Operate”

From the Wall Street Journal (June 8, 2020):

“We have to operate a hospital within a hospital, taking care of the needs for patients who have had strokes or a newborn delivery or need surgery while dealing with an otherwise healthy 35-year-old who picked up Covid-19 at a social event,” says James Linder, chief executive of Nebraska Medicine…

Rethinking The Hospital for the Next Pandemic - Wall Street Jouranl - June 8 2020For instance, more hospitals are remotely triaging and registering patients before they even arrive. Clinicians can consult with patients from their home via telemedicine to help determine how sick they are and if they need to come to the ER at all. From there, admissions are made with as little contact with staff or other patients as possible.

Hospitals are rethinking how they operate in light of the Covid-19 pandemic—and preparing for a future where such crises may become a grim fact of life.

Rethinking The Hospital for the Next Pandemic - Wall Street Jouranl - June 8 2020 - Illustration by Justin Metz
Illustration by Justin Metz

Rethinking The Hospital for the Next Pandemic - Wall Street Jouranl - June 8 2020 - Illustration by Justin MetzWith the potential for resurgences of the coronavirus, and some scientists warning about outbreaks of other infectious diseases, hospitals don’t want to be caught flat-footed again. So, more of them are turning to new protocols and new technology to overhaul standard operating procedure, from the time patients show up at an emergency room through admission, treatment and discharge.

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Interviews: Author Peter Boxall On His Book “The Prosthetic Imagination”

In this interview, Peter Boxall answers questions about his new title, The Prosthetic Imagination: A History of the Novel as Artificial Life. If the novel has helped to give our world a human shape, it also contains forms of life that elude our existing human architectures: new amalgams of the living and the non-living that are the hidden province of the novel imagination.
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These latent conjunctions, Boxall argues, are preserved in the novel form, and offer us images of embodied being that can help us orient ourselves to our new prosthetic condition.
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Discover more about this title at: https://www.cambridge.org/academic/su…

Top Photographers: “The Art Of Plated Food” By Jean Cazals (London)

Jean Cazals was awarded ‘Best Food Photographer 2012’ as well as other numerous awards. A London based food photographer, he gained his BA Hons. in Visual Communication at the LCP. After a successful decade of portraiture for editorial, advertising and design clients, he had a stint for 2 years shooting commercials.

Jean Cazals Manoir 2

Loving food and travel for years brought him naturally to turn his lens on food and lifestyle which he thoroughly enjoys!

Jean Cazals Chefs

Jean Cazals Photography

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News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious