For Chicago dance aficionados it was among the best of times.
Archives for December 30, 2013
More Words Yes, But We’re Not Really Having Conversations
“We’re talking all the time, in person as well as in texts, in e-mails, over the phone, on Facebook and Twitter. The world is more talkative now, in many ways, than it’s ever been. The problem, Turkle argues, is that all of this talk can come at the expense of conversation. We’re talking at each other rather than with each other.”
The Myth Of The Great American Novel
“Hardly anyone talks about the Great American Novel without a tincture of irony these days. But as Lawrence Buell shows in The Dream of the Great American Novel, his comprehensive and illuminating new study, that is nothing new: American writers have always held the phrase at arm’s length, recognizing in it a kind of hubris, if not mere boosterism.”
Reviving Books From The Dead (It’s Called “Continuation” Literature
“These days, continuation literature – as it has been hailed – falls into two camps: works that are licensed by writers’ estates and those that, like Austen, are in the public domain.”
Culture Quiz – The FT’s 2013 Culture Question Contest (AJ Readers Should Have No Problem With These)
“In a study published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport in September, researchers discovered that practitioners of a certain art form performed better after taking vitamin D supplements in winter than those who didn’t. Name the art form.”
Mayor Bloomberg’s Amazing NYC Arts Legacy
“The most prominent aspect of Mr. Bloomberg’s arts legacy is the $2 billion the city spent to transform the buildings of institutions across the city. But it also includes organizations that have come into being largely through the efforts of the mayor and his staff.”
Is This Nine-Year-Old The Next Opera Sensation?
Nine-year-old singer Amira Willighagen won Holland’s Got Talent on Saturday evening with a moving performance of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma.”
Global Fight To Attract Movie Business As California Loses Out
“Fueled by politicians doling out generous tax breaks, filmmaking talent is migrating to where the money is. The result is an incentives arms race that pits California against governments around the world and allows powerful studios –with hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal– to cherry-pick the best deals.”
Director Of The Barnes Moves On After Turbulent Tenure
“There was a fair amount of turbulence in the beginning, with one lawsuit after another. He weathered all of that in a spirit of, I would say, extreme graciousness and never lost his cool.”
Will New York’s New Mayor Lead A Return To Populist Art?
“The abrupt rise of Mr. de Blasio caught much of the city’s cultural establishment off guard and set off anxious speculation about what kind of artistic patron he might be as mayor — a question that took on particular urgency because the city budget is tight.”
Sequels Ruled At The Movies This Year (Sigh)
This was a fantastic year at the box office, but “Hollywood did it largely by serving more of the same. The five leading films at the global box office were all sequels.”
The Next Harry Potter Was Written By (Self-Published) Two French Women
“To fans, this was a story of literary injustice. Fourteen-year-old Achille, a diehard Pollock fan, wrote an open letter to the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, demanding a response from the hidebound dinosaurs of the Parisian book world.”