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.”
Archives for February 9, 2014
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.”
Is Social Media Cranking Up The Outrage Meter Too High?
“Fewer and fewer people try to seek common ground now. Instead, they and their crew fill your @replies, trying to dominate, no matter the subject, you name it. Doesn’t matter. The bell rings and everyone comes off the bleachers. Every day, every topic, is treated like Bush vs. Gore.”
Maxine Kumin, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet Who Loved The Sound Of Poetry, Dead At 88
“If there was a thematic constant in Ms. Kumin’s work, it was the fragile yet reassuringly durable balance in which connection, rupture and continuity find themselves arranged. All poems are elegies at their core, she often said.”
Making Art – And Profit – Off Of 6-Second Videos
When Vine and Instagram entered the instant, social-media-driven, short video game, who predicted that film school grads would soon be making a living from the apps?
How To Spot A Famous Painting In Your (Or A Museum’s) Attic
“Every great artist leaves stylistic fingerprints across a picture. This could be exquisitely handled drapery, a unique softness of expression or a masterful depiction of light. A knowing eye will locate and identify these tell-tale traits quickly.”
Magicians Buy Into The Mirror Theory Of Vermeer’s Paintings
Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller): “It’s a big, big hairy deal … as time goes on, it will change the way everybody sees 17th-century art.”
When Is The Right Time To Make Movies About A War?
During WWII, for instance, filmmakers in the West never showed the complexity and cruelty of war, but “today, it does seem to be possible for film-makers to be brutal and realistic before the conflict is over.”
Authors Can Change Ebooks Whenever They Want. Is This A Good Thing?
“One of the consolations of traditional authorship is that when a book is published, it’s finished. There’s that moment when the first hardbound copies come back from the publisher and one thinks: ‘Well, that’s that: now on to the next thing.'”
Oh, You Think The Beatles Were Cute? They Destroyed America!
Well, American music, anyway: “February 1964 — boom! No one had made or heard sounds like these. Here’s a crucial truth that goes totally unappreciated today: They were loud. … By the standards of the day, they were cacophonous.”