Arts and letters daily list12/1/2023 To Sedaris’s immediate right sat Lorrie Moore, Academy Secretary, who would go on to induct 2018’s new members: in art, Nicole Eisenmann, Jenny Holzer, and Sarah Sze in literature, Ron Chernow, Jeffrey Eugenides, Maxine Hong Kingston, Terrence McNally, Lynn Nottage, Jayne Anne Phillips, and George Saunders in music, Ben Johnston, and George E. Buruma was similarly honored for his foreigness.įront row, stage left, Ann Patchett, in a chic red dress over a white blouse, sat next to David Sedaris, who she would later introduce as the recipient of the Academy’s Medal for Spoken Language. Smith, there to be inducted as a “Foreign Honorary Member” of the Academy was seated next to Ian Buruma, new(ish) editor of The New York Review of Books, whose red socks, briefly glimpsed as he shifted through assorted introductions, were a perfect accent to Ms. Though current (and future) academy members were assembled onstage for a class photo (and despite a church-like atmosphere soundtracked by live organ), the sartorial choices on display hinted at rather more lively thinking.Īs is the case in most rooms graced by her presence, the eye was drawn immediately to Zadie Smith, sitting front row, stage right, resplendent in a marvelous green suit, purple shirt, and red headscarf. When one thinks of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (AAAL)-or, indeed, if one thinks of any such similarly august institution, the British Academy, say, or France’s Order of Arts and Letters-a bit of sepia enters the picture: stiff, formal portraits of dead white men in antique facial hair (mutton chops, van dykes), gathered to quietly laud the nation’s artistic traditions, of which they claim to be progenitors and caretakers both.īut one, warm sleepy afternoon last week, upon entering the Academy itself on West 155th Street, the picture was a little different.
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