weekend links: the Library of Babel, "A Color Removed," bohemianism
A still from the AMC series Better Call Saul, spliced together with a detail from Caravaggio's The Sacrifice of Isaac (1662). Image appears courtesy of The Paris Review.
Are you in the Austin area? So are we! Come say hi at the Austin Lit Fair, part of the New Fiction Confab, taking place from 2–5 p.m. today at the Faulk Central Library. [Austin Public Library Friends Foundation]
An enterprising Brooklyn author has created a virtual Library of Babel, the Borgesian construct of a universal library containing every possible text. He taught himself to code after the idea came to him in bed. Is this real life? Read this interview and let me know. [Flavorwire]
Artist Michael Rakowitz has embarked on an impossible project in response to the 2014 shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. “A Color Removed” aims to start a conversation about the right to safety by eradicating all traces of orange—the color of the plastic rings that identify toy guns as replicas—from Cleveland. [Hyperallergic]
Have you ever wondered how some of history's most revered artists organized their days? Well, now you can see for yourself with this nifty little graphic inspired by Mason Currey's 2013 book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. Turns out Picasso slept pretty regularly until noon. There's hope for us yet. [The Washington Post]
From the annals of gentrification: what happens when artists get priced out of the cities whose cultures they’ve helped build? The upper-middle-class has transitioned from condemning the bohemian lifestyle to co-opting it, and their capriciousness threatens the cachet of urban cultural centers like San Francisco and NYC. (Bonus: this essay has some great nineteenth-century lit gossip.) [Radio Silence]
In honor of National Poetry Month, paragon of journalistic integrity Buzzfeed brings us a list of 31 contemporary poets you should read. I’m surprised to be linking to Buzzfeed, but it makes sense if you think of poets as glorified list-makers. [Buzzfeed]
And speaking of art in unexpected places: Matt Siegel proposes that the dramatic cinematography of AMC’s Better Call Saul draws inspiration from baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Siegel also brings us your word of the week: tenebrism. [The Paris Review]
Stephen Adly Guirgis won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Between Riverside and Crazy, his dark comedy about a retired NYC police officer facing eviction. In his first post-Pulitzer interview, he tells the cute story of how he found out he won. (Also, check out a full list of the 2015 winners.) [New York Daily News]
Austinites: this weekend is your last chance to check out Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird at the Harry Ransom Center before it leaves for a trip to New York. [Harry Ransom Center]
—Alyssa G. Ramirez