“His grander salon paintings are embarrassing in their attempt to emulate his idol Claude Lorrain, but they were always striving to portray in paint the emotions he felt in gazing at a storm-swept sea or a tumbling mountain waterfall or a Venetian lagoon at twilight.”
Archives for December 8, 2013
Basically, Nothing Separates A PG-13 From An R
“Our findings raise serious concerns about the effectiveness of the MPAA rating system.”
Commander Chris Hadfield Takes On The Nutcracker
“The National says it’s the first time in its 63-year-history that an astronaut has appeared on-stage as a Cannon Doll.”
Is Anything In The Arts More Painful Than Terrible Theatre?
“After the first half-hour, it felt like someone was sticking needles in my arms and legs.”
Stop Saying ‘Love, Actually’ Is Romantic – It’s The Opposite
“What does Love Actually tell us about love, actually? Well, I think it tells us a number of things, most of them wrong and a few of them appalling.”
Almodovar Tackles Spanish Government (Again)
“The 64-year-old filmmaker called it ‘deaf and insensitive’ to the country’s problems and railed against its ‘awful cultural policy.’ Spanish state funding to the arts, including film, has been drastically reduced in recent years.”
When The Movie Is So Much More Fun Than The Book
“The moment I unwrapped my present I knew something had gone horribly wrong.”
How Did A Furniture Factory In Wisconsin Turn Out So Many Classic Records?
“Their very cheapness and interest in getting stuff out as quickly as possible ended up unwittingly providing this platform with this incredible breadth to it — just in the diversity of sounds that were captured.”
Years After 9/11, The Flea Theatre Finds A Permanent Home
“The smallest of its spaces, at 44 seats, will be called the Siggy in [Sigourney] Weaver’s honor.”
American Inequality Is Out Of Control, Says Creator Of ‘The Wire’
“About 20 blocks away is another America entirely. It’s astonishing how little we have to do with each other, and yet we are living in such proximity.”
When TV Gets Boring, Is It Time For A Musical Episode … Or Not?
“For shows that don’t normally have music … and achieve a certain longevity, the musical episode is something of a television tradition. These episodes no doubt give the cast a way to shake off the doldrums, and they tend to make a big impression on fans.”
Stonehenge Remodeled Just In Time For Winter Solstice
“There has been a growth in Druid orders and in the number of people interested in pagan festivals.
Upworthy Style Headlines Have Colonized Our News Feeds. Why?
“If you want to understand why the Upworthy style is suddenly everywhere, you start with a program that controls what millions of people see and read everyday—and which very few people understand.”
Off Broadway (By 7000 Miles), Broadway Musicals Reign
“Ticket sales to American and European musicals, as well as to a sprinkling of Korean originals, have grown from $9 million in 2000 to an estimated $300 million this year, and a frenzy of licensing deals is underway.”
They’re Going To Revive Elaine’s Without Elaine?
“Not only did Ms. Kaufman genuinely like writers, but early on, she may have sensed that when one coddles them, one tends to get written about.”
It’s Wrong And Flat-Out Stupid To Loot The DIA
“The whole point of a bankruptcy is to solve deep and structural problems in the economic organization of a major city – not to strip-mine everything from the Bellinis at the museum to the baboons at the Detroit Zoo for however much one-time cash you can squeeze out of them.”
What Can We Learn From Katy Perry?
“Perhaps Perry mimics geishas because she recognizes in them the same elaborate traditions of costume, makeup, dance, singing, and erotic performance, to a commercial end, of which she is a part.”
The Most Important Monuments Man Might’ve Been A Parisian Woman
“During the Nazi occupation, she had worked in the Museum Jeu de Paume, an important depot for art plundered by the Nazis. There she tried to keep track of where the artworks ended up, registering every single work.”
When Your Body Fuses With Your Musical Instrument
“Proprioception (e.g. muscle memory) provides the player with a cognitive shortcut that frees the conscious mind from primarily focusing on the mechanical details of music performance and allows it to address issues of aesthetics.”
Should Courts Legally Protect Graffiti As Street Art?
“Some artists want their work to stay up forever. For me it’s part of the game, you don’t know if it will stay up or if you will be arrested.”
Alice Munro And The Vindication Of The Short Story
“Maybe I write stories that people get very involved in, maybe it is the complexity and the lives presented in them. I hope they are a good read. I hope they move people.”
Orhan Panuk’s Museum Of Innocence Is 500 Days Old: How’s It Doing?
“As the violence snowballed and spilled onto the streets I walked past the museum door, looked at the building’s red facade and tried imagining the silence inside.”
Despite Labor Disputes, Minnesota Orchestra Gets Grammy Nomination
“The nomination, in the Best Orchestral Performance category, is its second in two years.”
Could We Get Some Actual Women Onscreen, Please?
“Women rarely appear as women – they appear as sex objects or as ersatz men – sometimes both at once.”
How Can The UK’s National Theatre Claim ‘National’ Status?
London sucks up most of the air – and definitely most of the money – for the arts in the UK. Can the National Theatre somehow reach “the country’s furthest flung corners”?
Can L.A. Theatres Of All Sizes Band Together To Reach More Audiences?
“We’ve already had meetings about visioning and marketing and branding and talking about what we want L.A. theater to look like in 30 years.”
To Succeed In Ballet, Know You’ll Have To Struggle And Fail
Principal ballerina Lauren Cuthbertson: “It can be quite lonely. Sometimes you can feel isolated because you are the only one in your group of friends that really understands what you need to do to get to the next level.”
Is It Fanfic If A ‘Real’ Writer Does It?
“That impulse — to find out more about minor or secondary characters — has inspired many books over the years.”
Why Did James Franco Make A ‘Pornographic Arthouse Film’?
“He is keen to rebel against the beige treatment of sex in mainstream cinema: the soft stroking of hairless limbs, the passionate kiss that cuts to a dishevelled duvet, the straight-sex, softcore-only policies.”
The Vogue For ‘Cold Ending’ In Film Does Not Work For A Lot Of The Audience
“Dude behind me? Lost it, loudly: ‘That’s it? Really? Really? Worst movie ever! Oscar contender!?'”