FluxDash

Music blogMusicThis is the place to check how many times Kris Kristofferson has made it onto a playlist (clue: the answer is once) Punctuation marks !!! - Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard (A True Story); Pardon My Freedom ? & the Mysterians - 96 Tears Numerals 10cc - Headline Hustler 10,000 Maniacs - Eat for Two; Planned Obsolescence; Like the Weather 13th Floor Elevators - You're Gonna Miss Me

Top 10sFictionFrom James Joyce to Ali Smith and Chigozie Obioma, the archetypal stories of the ancients have inspired some of our best fiction When we think of Greek myths we think of vengeful gods, legendary heroes, sweeping love affairs and dastardly deeds. They are transformative tales which explore the full range of human experience so it is hardly surprising that writers continually turn to them for inspiration. Poets such as Dante and Petrarch were enthralled by Greek myth, so too were Chaucer and Milton.

The ObserverDeontay WilderWilder stunned by Parker in Riyadh before Joshua outclasses WallinParker wins unanimous points decision against AmericanJoshua looks back to his best in five-round stoppageDrama and hubris, those familiar staples of boxing, returned to the ring in Riyadh when the heavily favoured Deontay Wilder lost his heavyweight contest against Joseph Parker. In an embarrassingly one-sided fight, with Wilder looking a shell of his former self as his technical flaws were accentuated more graphically than ever before, Parker boxed with composure and belief to receive the unanimous verdict by overwhelming margins of 118-111, 118-110 and 120-108.

Top 10sBooksFrom an obsessed forger in Perec’s Portrait of a Man to a disturbing project in Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, the author of Painter to the King shares her favourite literary works on artists To write about painting is to think about the act of seeing; the way the world begins to arrange itself before an artist’s eye and hand; the suspension of self that happens in the moment of creation (plus all the anxieties, intensities and ecstasies it might entail).

Barbara Skelton modelling a ‘little black dress’ in 1948. Photograph: Baron/Getty ImagesBarbara Skelton modelling a ‘little black dress’ in 1948. Photograph: Baron/Getty ImagesRereadingBooksEvelyn Waugh gossiped about her, Anthony Powell put her in his novels and Lord Weidenfeld, briefly, married her. She was a writer, a bohemian, a femme fatale – but, on her centenary, DJ Taylor asks who was the real Barbara Skelton? Barbara Skelton’s trail runs through a certain type of 20th century literary life like a vein of quartz.

Florida This article is more than 2 years oldFlorida man washes ashore after trying to ‘walk’ to New York in bubble deviceThis article is more than 2 years oldReza Baluchi told the coast guard he was headed 1,000 miles north in a running wheel contraption but ended up 30 miles south A Florida man startled beachgoers when he washed ashore inside a hybrid bubble-running wheel device. The man, identified by a local news channel as Reza Baluchi, washed ashore in Flagler county on the east coast of Florida on Saturday.

FamilyIvana Lowell's childhood was punctuated by disaster, including sexual abuse. But worst of all, she says, was finding out that her father wasn't who she'd thoughtHad Ivana Lowell decided to turn her life into a novel, so far-fetched and brimming with disaster would it be that nobody would have believed it. Even a new therapist who asked Ivana to summarise significant events in her life – maternal neglect, sexual abuse, a near fatal childhood accident, losing her father, stepfather and sister before the age of 13, marriage to a drug addict, years of alcoholism and rehab, and finding out that the man she thought was her father was not – looked at her and said: "

TV comedyInterviewLil Dicky on Dave: 'Everything the show says about my penis is true'Ammar KaliaThe hit sitcom about a white Jewish rapper in the world of hip-hop takes male insecurity to profound levels. Its star Dave Burd, AKA Lil Dicky, reveals where it all comes from ‘I couldn’t ignore this thing that was the driving force of my childhood and my neuroticism,” Dave Burd tells me over the phone from Los Angeles.

MoviesObituaryPowers Boothe obituaryActor who revelled in playing charismatic villains and all-round bad guysThe actor Powers Boothe, who has died aged 68, was one of Hollywood’s greatest villains. His characters embraced their villainy with complete self-belief, relished their freedom from restraint, and disdained the boredom of creatures more tightly bound by morality. They were also entertaining and dangerously likable. Boothe’s bad men often represented the darker side of the heroes to whom he played foil; his flamboyant Curly Bill Brocius is the antithesis of Kurt Russell’s tightly wrapped Wyatt Earp in Tombstone (1993) and, as if they were two sides of the same violent person, his white-suited drug lord even shares a woman with Nick Nolte as the vengeful Texas ranger who was his childhood friend, in Walter Hill’s over-the-top B movie Extreme Prejudice (1987).