“Michelangelo was also a skilled forger who made copies of major works before ageing them with smoke and swapping them for the originals.” Wait, what?
Archives for February 9, 2014
How Can Choreographer Paul Taylor Cement His Legacy?
“After six decades in which the Paul Taylor Dance Company existed to dance almost nothing but Paul Taylor works, Mr. Taylor said that he wanted to broaden its mission to include presenting past masterworks of modern dance and works of contemporary choreographers in addition to his oeuvre and the dances he plans to continue to create.”
What’s It Like To Be A Medical Actor?
“You get a script and a paper gown. You get $13.50 an hour. Our scripts are ten to twelve pages long. They outline what’s wrong with us — not just what hurts but how to express it. They tell us how much to give away, and when. We are supposed to unfurl the answers according to specific protocols.”
Sony Leaves The North American Ebook Market And Hands Its Customers To Kobo
“Sony, which is essentially a non-player in the U.S. ebook market at this point, is cutting its losses and shutting down its digital bookstore in the U.S. and Canada, the company reported Thursday”
As Sony Leaves Ebook Market, What Does This Mean For Barnes & Noble’s Nook?
“I’m sure Apple or Kobo or Google would be just delighted to have their ebooks integrated into Barnes & Noble’s suite of offerings, and probably Amazon would too, although they would almost certainly never be asked.”
How The Hell Does The Builders Association Make (Good) Theatre About Technology?
Marianne Weems: “When we first started a lot of people would say, ‘Is this theater?’ — Producers, presenters and audience members alike. And our response at the time was, ‘Well it is taking place in the theater,’ and obviously all that has changed.”
BBC Comedy Has Too Few Women – And Now The BBC Is Fixing That
“While all-male episodes already filmed will still be broadcast, all future programming will feature at least one female panel member or presenter.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 02.09.14
The Best Artistic Response To “Monuments Men”
Source: Real Clear Arts | Published on 2014-02-10
Documenting Dance, Part 1
Source: Dancebeat | Published on 2014-02-09
Raising Up the Masses?
Source: We The Audience | Published on 2014-02-09
In defence of BBC Radio 3
Source: Slipped Disc | Published on 2014-02-09
You Are There: Where Burroughs Once Lived in Mexico City
Source: Straight|Up | Published on 2014-02-09
What Will The Broad Museum’s Planned Plaza Do For LA’s Public Spaces?
“The design of the plaza is the most meaningful bit of news here. And that’s not just because Bunker Hill is short on public space that is well-designed and friendly to pedestrians. It’s also because the details of how the plaza will operate — and who will own it — make up a multilayered and in the end rather opaque story.”
So, Romance Novels Thrive On Predictability (Shocker!)
“One thing that you have understand if you’re gonna get into writing romance is that the things that are valued in that genre are not the same things that are valued when we read something like literary fiction.”
Return The Elgin Marbles To Greece? George Clooney Says Yes
“Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing if they were returned. I think that is a good idea. That would be a very fair and very nice thing. I think it is the right thing to do.”
Turning Brainwaves Into Music (Literally)
Put an electrode at the back of your head, and watch a cellist play your thoughts. [VIDEO]
The British Love Fussy Architecture, Says Guy Who Headed Up The Stonehenge Visitors Center Debacle
“The English, he maintains, have what he calls ‘a sweet-tooth aesthetic’, a taste for ornamentation. That taste, he suggests, explains why each square metre of Lincoln Cathedral cost 10 times more than its French equivalents.”
As Film Production Leaves LA, Small Businesses That Supply It Fail
Film production in LA county is down, and that means distress for the small businesses that supply it. “The downturn has forced the closing or bankruptcy of several visual effects shops, prop houses and other vendors.”
Using Music’s Patterns To Create Stronger Spider Silk
“From the basic physics of string theory to complex biological materials, different functions arise from a small number of universal building blocks. I call this the universality-diversity paradigm.”
How A Space Battle In An Online Game Cost Its Players Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dollars
“Though it was just a game, the 7,548 people who fought the Battle of B-R could not have taken it any more seriously—and not simply because they lost virtual ships worth more than $300,000 in real-world money fighting it. And it all started when someone forgot to pay the rent on a space station.”
A Life Utterly Devoted To Ballet
“‘Janet Sassoon gave her life to dance like the maiden to the volcano,” says choreographer Alonzo King, who has known Sassoon for decades. ‘Complete, total, unequivocally committed, as a performer, teacher and coach.'”
China May Raise Foreign Movie Quota By 10
“The Film Bureau in Beijing looks set to raise the quota of foreign movies allowed into China by 10 movies to 44 films, a sign of growing openness in the world’s second-biggest box office market.”
Really, J.K. Rowling, Did You Have To Tell Us You Had Doubts About Hermione And Ron?
“If Rowling feels that strongly, she should write a sequel putting right what she thinks she got wrong – Harry Potter and the Acrimonious Divorce, perhaps.”
Not So Fast: Judge Temporarily Bars Removal Of Picasso Tapestry From Four Seasons
“I don’t want to be the judge who has a Picasso destroyed. … If some damage were to occur, no amount of money could make up for the loss of any Picasso.”
Our Audio And Video History Is Disappearing. Can We Save It?
“Video tape and audiotape is not a stable format. After 40 or 50 years, they are disintegrating. And the information—pictures, sounds on that physical medium—is disappearing. Unlike a piece of paper or a photograph that might last 100 years, media formats are extremely fragile.”
Sure, She Won A Pulitzer, But What Was Maxine Kumin Like In The Classroom?
“The thing that’s depressing is teaching graduate students today and discovering that they don’t know simple elemental facts of grammar. They really do not know how to scan a line; they’ve never been taught to scan a line. Many of them don’t know the difference between lie and lay, let alone its and it’s.”
What Makes A Playwright Qualified To Tell Someone Else’s Story?
“Plays are stories—fairy tales and fictions, historical and magical. They are not documentaries or history lessons. To think they are such would be myopic.”
We (And Publishers) Need To Figure Out How To Measure Our Time Online
“Shares and mentions can communicate the magnitude of an article’s attention, but they can’t always tell you the direction of the share vector: Did people share it because they loved it, or because they loved hating it?”
How Can Jazz And Classical Get Some Attention On Streaming Services?
“Services such as Spotify and iTunes don’t handle the more complicated metadata very well, often rendering music in these genres harder to discover and sort. But building a tailor-made private playground cut off from huge pools of listeners is an even worse attempt at a solution.”
Vanska: Minnesota Orchestra Chief Needs To Go
In a conversation Saturday with Brian Newhouse, managing director of Classical Minnesota Public Radio, Osmo Vanska said that “For any healing to begin at the orchestra, Michael Henson must go.”
What’s Up With The (Norse) End Of The World?
With Ragnarok predicted for February 22 (yes, of this year), author Joanne Harris wonders: “For centuries, artists, writers and composers from Wagner, Tolkien, and Tennyson to Marvel Comics have taken inspiration from these tales of conflict, companionship and adventure. Why?”
Broad Museum In L.A. Delays Opening Until 2015
“Construction, which began in 2012, was delayed by one of the building’s most distinctive features: a honeycomb-style concrete-and-steel structure, known as the veil, that wraps around the museum.”
What We Talk About When We Talk About Philip Seymour Hoffman
“I don’t know what demons might be to blame, but as a one-time junkie, I do know that the demons hardly matter. We imagine addiction as a voluntary act, romantic or tragic, depending on our mood. When we try to imagine the scene, we conjure up pictures of the wrong room and the wrong stress; tumultuous men brought low by vulnerability in the face of fear and loneliness.”
A Terrible Night For Miles Davis – And Two Classic Albums For The World
“They have a big row, they go on, and basically they play this kind of speed-metal, punk, thrash-jazz, with Davis acting almost as conductor. They knew the setting and the moment was unique; they thought they were absolutely rubbish, though.”