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A Century After It Was Proposed, The National Museum Of African American History And Culture Opens
”There were some who said it couldn’t happen, who said ‘you can’t do it,’ but we did it,’ said Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who led the charge to make the museum a reality. ‘This place is more than a building. It is a dream come true.'”
The Washington Post Published:09.24.16
France Announces $100 Million Fund For Middle East Cultural Preservation
“Besides appealing for sites to be protected, Francois Hollande also called for a strengthened commitment to cultural preservation that might include “intervention”, for which he gave no details. Restoration of damaged sites would also be part of his new mission, he said. So would “asylum” for some endangered works of art, a curious term, given the resistance towards accepting Syrian refugees in Europe and the Gulf States.”
The Art Newspaper Published:09.21.16
Today’s AJBlogs Highlights
John Coltrane At 90 There are so many options that it is difficult to know what to bring you today to observe the great saxophonist John Coltrane’s (1926-1967) 90th birthday. Among Coltrane’s hundreds of recordings and videos, no doubt … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-09-23Man Down! We’ve Lost Andrew Sullivan: The Battle For The Real World Is Coming For You Is reality just a construct of the online world or is the online world merely an overlay on reality? Every new technological advance that extends our reach also imposes previously unnecessary decisions about how and … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-09-23A view from the gasworks In today’s Wall Street Journal I review an important off-Broadway revival of Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Shelagh Delaney wrote her first play, “A Taste of Honey,” a … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-09-23Published:09.24.16
Does Free Admission To Museum Change Who Comes (Or What They Do?)
“Many of those museums that have altered their admissions models have noticed a shift in visitor patterns. Attendance doubled after fees were waived to England’s national collections in 2001, said the director of London’s Natural History Museum to The Guardian. When the Dallas Museum of Art nixed its $10 admission fee, its annual attendance swelled from 498,000 to 668,000, and the institution saw a 29 percent increase in minority visitors, Fortune reported.”
CityLab Published:09.23.16
Why Did Brexit Succeed? A Failure Of Philosophy
“For this continental European, it seems as if the famed British practicality didn’t quite work out this time, and the challenge came precisely from thinking that issues are always practical, forgetting that what truly matters are the foundation, the philosophy. Well-worn stereotypes say that the Germans resort to Kant and the French to Voltaire, while the Brits weigh the pros and cons (and Italians, like myself, just sing a song). But beyond the pros and cons, there are motivations, impulses, values and ideals, and ultimately that is what drives history.”
The Guardian (UK) Published:09.22.16
Seriously? Did China Just Pave Over The Great Wall?
“Chinese preservationists, internet users and media commentators have been incensed this week after pictures showed that officials repaired part of the Great Wall in northeast China by slapping a white substance on top of the crumbling, weathered stones.”
The New York Times Published:09.22.16
Are These The World’s Best New Highrises?
To qualify for “the world’s most important prize for high-rises,” buildings have to present at least 100 m (328 ft) in height and must have been completed in the previous two years.
ArtInfo Published:09.22.16
Art Critic John Bentley Mays, 75
“His life’s work was as a critic and he was for four decades one of Canada’s great observers, interpreters and explainers of art and architecture.”
The Globe and Mail (Canada) Published:09.22.16
Feel Lonely A Lot? It May Be Genetic
“A large new study published online last week in the Nature journal Neuropsychopharmacology …finds that loneliness appears to be a ‘modestly heritable’ trait. A predisposition to feeling lonely may run in the family, in other words. But there’s a caveat here.”
Science of Us Published:09.21.16
The Trial Of George W. Bush And An Audience’s Verdict
“Don’t worry if you didn’t know the 43rd president was on trial. This was an off-Broadway verdict, the conclusion to a new play called The Trial of an American President. The trial was fiction, but the vote, from nine members of the audience chosen to be the jury, was very real.”
The Daily Beast Published:09.23.16
TV – Even Peak TV – Does Not Work In A Film Festival
“Frankly, it felt weird to be watching TV at a film festival. A movie is a closed loop: it begins and an hour and a half or two or three hours later, it ends.”
Flavorwire Published:09.19.16
Incoming Arts Council England Boss Surprised By Plan For Arts Quality Assessments
Tate boss Sir Nicholas Serota responded with disbelief to presenter Sue MacGregor when she told him of ACE’s plans to introduce Quality Metrics to measure artistic quality and said “the Arts Council is going to say if it doesn’t tick these boxes we’re not going to give money to it.” Serota responded: “I suspect you caricature the decision”, which MacGregor denied, saying: “No, I’m almost quoting it word for word from the press release.”
ArtsProfessional Published:09.22.16
Staging Death: A Brief History
From Sophocles through Roman spectacles and the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol to Sarah Kane, a look at the means – decorous, horrifying, inventive – playwrights, directors and stage managers have used to depict characters’ ends.
JSTOR Daily Published:09.21.16
Coding Is Not “Fun.” It’s An Expression Of Values And Ethics
“The machine does what you say, not what you mean. More and more ‘decisions’ are being entrusted to software, including life-or-death ones: think self-driving cars; think semi-autonomous weapons; think Facebook and Google making inferences about your marital, psychological or physical status, before selling it to the highest bidder. Yet it’s rarely in the interests of companies and governments to encourage us to probe what’s going on beneath these processes.”
Aeon Published:09.23.16
There’s No Need To Fret About Today’s Decline In ‘Proper’ Punctuation
“Punctuation started out as free and easy prosodic units, meant to help the reader read out loud to an audience with all the requisite intonation, tone, pitch and pauses intended by an absent author. … With the more speech-like IM, texts, tweets, punctuation is just getting back to its roots, as a way to convey prosodic and speech cues in the absence of sound and vision.”
JSTOR Daily Published:09.21.16
The Phone Call, R.I.P.
“The phone call always was an invasive form of communication, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that as soon as a plausible substitute presented itself we grabbed it.”
Slate Published:09.18.16
The Trouble With Sombreros At Tequila Parties: Francine Prose On Lionel Shriver’s Cultural Appropriation Speech
“The topic is a complicated and sensitive one, and Shriver’s first mistake, I think, was to ignore that complexity and sensitivity by adopting a tone that ranged from jauntiness to mockery and contempt. … To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a hat is more than just a hat.”
New York Review of Books Published:09.19.16
Even After 20 Years, ‘South Park’ Gets Thrown Together On The Fly Each Week
Said co-creator Trey Parker one day earlier this month: “There are times where we go, ‘How do we tell Comedy Central we don’t have a show?’ This is one of those.” Dave Itzkoff watches how they pull it off.
New York Times Published:09.25.16
Monty Python’s Terry Jones Diagnosed With Dementia
“The 74-year-old is suffering from primary progressive aphasia, which affects his ability to communicate. As well as appearing in the BBC TV shows and films, Jones also directed the features The Life Of Brian and Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life, and co-directed Monty Python And The Holy Grail with Terry Gilliam.”
The Guardian Published:09.23.16
‘Sick Joker Or Avant-Garde Savior?’ Romeo Castellucci Makes Theater That’s Powerful, Confounding, And Icky
“His often-abrasive theater pieces won’t let you look away – whether it’s an elderly man struggling to control his bodily functions beneath a benevolent painting of Christ (On the Concept of the Face) or a klatch of Amish women cutting off one another’s tongues (The Four Seasons Restaurant).”
Philadelphia Inquirer Published:09.22.16
Meet The NYC Sanitation Department’s Artist In Residence
“For an artist obsessed for nearly half a century with the concepts of maintenance and sanitation, Mierle Laderman Ukeles keeps an office in desperate need of a cleaning. Or maybe an intervention by a department of doctoral students.”
New York Times Published:09.22.16
Buffalo Philharmonic Board Chair Arrested On Corruption Charges
“[Louis P.] Ciminelli has been chairman of the BPO’s board for two terms, assuming the office in 2012. He has been generous to the orchestra, and his tenure has been a time of prosperity. In 2015, when his 60th birthday coincided with the BPO’s fall season-opening gala, Ciminelli gave the orchestra a gift of $1 million. “
Buffalo News Published:09.22.16
Teacher Steps On An American Flag During Free Speech Lesson, Gets Death Threats And Investigation By School District
“The civics teacher from Massey Hill Classical High School in Fayetteville, N.C., was giving a lesson last week about the Bill of Rights that touched on Texas v. Johnson, the Supreme Court case upholding the constitutional right to burn the American flag. To illustrate the landmark decision, Francis pulled out a full-size Star-Spangled Banner and laid it on the classroom floor. ‘Does anybody have a lighter,’ he asked the class. When no one responded, Francis stepped on the flag several times.”
Washington Post Published:09.21.16
Marina Abramović’s Ex Wins Intellectual Property Suit Against Her
“Abramović and Ulay, born Frank Uwe Laysiepen, had been lovers and co-creators for more than a decade before their separation in 1988 … Ulay launched a lawsuit last year in which he claimed that Abramović has violated a contract they signed in 1999 covering works they had created together.” On Thursday, a Dutch court agreed.
The Guardian Published:09.21.16
Balanchine’s ‘Divertimento No. 15’ – Alastair Macaulay Does The Arithmetic
“Three men to partner five women! … I’ve often wondered if the name Divertimento No. 15 gave him the idea: 15 = 5 x 3, a kind of numerical pun. Having eight principals (5 + 3), he matches them with a corps of eight women. As you watch the changing corps patterns, Balanchine shows how neatly divisible the number eight can be – two fours, four twos: symmetries abound. But then you see those eight principals. Eight, after all, can contain an imbalance.”
New York Times Published:09.22.16
A Rising New Opera Star In The Rarest Of Voice Ranges
Says conductor Thomas Crawford of 25-year-old contralto Avery Amereau, “I don’t mean to exaggerate, but this woman made my knees shake.”
New York Times Published:09.22.16
God, Did I Write That? New York Times Gets Playwrights To Look Back At Their Teenage Work
“How mortifying would it be to page through the creative writing you did as a teenager? And then, years or even decades later, actually see it in print? That’s what we recently asked a set of notable playwrights” – among them Lynn Nottage, Neil LaBute, Tina Howe, Nicky Silver, and Marcus Gardley – “to do.”
New York Times Published:09.16.16
Professional Byzantine Chant (!) Choir In Oregon (!) Has Thrived For 20 Years
“[Cappella Romana], the Portland-based vocal ensemble, which performs annual concert series in its hometown and Seattle, has released more than 20 recordings. Its tours have brought the group’s sometimes ethereal, sometimes austere, always powerfully moving music to venues such as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Los Angeles’ Getty Center, the Smithsonian Institution, Stanford and Yale universities and festivals throughout Europe.”
The Oregonian Published:09.19.16
Top Posts From AJBlogs 09.22.16
The most inspiring conference …
… that I’ve ever been at … This was the DePauw School of Music 21Cymposium, held the weekend before last. I gave the keynote talk, but … later for that. What inspired me about this event wasn’t anything I said, … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-09-22
Little man, big trouble
Mrs. T and I just watched Conquest, a delicious 1937 movie in which Charles Boyer and Greta Garbo played Napoleon Bonaparte and the Countess Marie Walewska. Seeing Conquest reminded me that I reviewed two books … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-09-22
So you want to see a show?
Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-09-22
[ssba_hide]AJBlogs Published:09.22.16
Battle Bots: Wikipedia Bots Keep Editing And Re-Editing Each Other In Dance Of Futility
“Wikipedia editors sometimes use bots to help them keep on top of changes that users have made to the online encyclopedia. But when two editors task different bots with making incompatible edits, each bot will keep finding that its work has been undone.”
New Scientist Published:09.21.16
Arts And Technology – A Natural Complement (Until They Go To War)
“It was the assertion of the Romantic movement that art makes us appreciate the beauty, richness and sheer size of the world. And technology, used appropriately, brings us closer to that sublime… Even if that was true in 1939, it’s not true now: not now our drones do our flying for us; not now our technology has got away from us to the point where large portions of nature are being erased; not now we live mired in media and, indeed, have to make special efforts to escape it.”
New Scientist Published:09.21.16
Communication Isn’t Just About Efficiency. Theatre, For Example…
“Life is both ever-various and surprising, and, at the same time, one long uninterrupted (and, admit it, sometimes awfully boring) conversation with ourselves.”
The New York Times Published:09.21.16
Hollywood Worries About A Netflix Monopoly (And It Should)
The streaming pioneer is spending $6 billion a year on making shows. “Out of the blue Netflix comes into the market and says, ‘We’re going to give you a number [to license a network show],’ ” says one television agent. “For the studios, it was, ‘Holy shit. Do we even need a cable sale?’ They all got addicted to crack. Nobody really thought they’d be a competitor on the originals market. They used stuff from the studios and became important. Now you see the backlash.”
The Hollywood Reporter Published:09.14.16
Fifty Prominent Museum Directors Sign Letter Supporting North Dakota Indian Treaty Rights
“The letter was initiated by the Natural History Museum, a project of the New York-based art collective Not An Alternative, which has sought to politicize science and natural history museums around issues of climate change.”
Artnet Published:09.20.16
How Greg Tate’s Criticism Showed Me Being A Critic Could Be Art
Jazz critic Tate’s essays for the Village Voice were poetry. “For a generation of critics, Tate’s career has served as a reminder that diversity isn’t just about a splash of color in the group photo; it’s about the different ways that people see, feel, and move within the world. These differences can be imperceptible, depending on where your eye lingers as you scan the newsroom.”
The New Yorker Published:09.21.16
Some Rules For Brainstorming From Some Experts (If You Want To Accomplish Anything)
“We invited 50 leaders in the design community—typically some of the most opinionated, creative, and analytical types in business—to share how or if they brainstorm. Here are some of their responses, including a characteristically honest one from the legendary and outspoken creative director George Lois.”
Fast Company Published:09.18.16
How Did Argentine Dancers Get To Be So Great?
“Around the world, there are prominent Argentine doctors, scientists, international-law experts, conductors, musicians. This is especially striking in the world of dance. Ballet was more or less a twentieth-century import to Argentina, brought by travelling troupes like Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, but its roots have dug their way down deep.”
The New Yorker Published:09.18.16
My Relationship With Critics
Jack Reuler has worked in theatre in Minnesota and says critics have been an important part of the the community there. “Like with any body of people, some are wonderful and some are assholes and many are in between. Similarly, the real test of a critic is not how well or how often they rave or how viciously they eviscerate, but how they write about the 90 percent of the shows that fall between those extremes.”
Howlround Published:09.18.16
A Critic Tries To Figure Out The State Of American Theatre (It Isn’t Easy)
Helen Shaw has spent the last 12 years as a theatre critic in New York. She says the state of the field is mixed. “As recently as 2007, critic Robert Brustein could say on a panel that we had 35 ‘really fine’ playwrights; even the hardest-to-please observer would say now that the number has more than quadrupled. Some theatre lovers don’t like to categorize the flood because of the canon’s long history of exclusion.”
American Theatre Published:09.21.16
How An ’80s California UFO Cult Became Public Access TV Auteurs
“The participants in these psychodramas [as the makers called them], which continued to air on public access channels into the ’90s, were not professional actors, but members of a UFO cult re-enacting their memories of past lives on film. They were part of Unarius, a self-described ‘spiritual school’ that offers self-improvement ‘based on the interdimensional understanding of energy.'”
Atlas Obscura Published:09.15.16
Netflix Reveals Which TV Episodes Hook People On Watching The Series
You know that moment you’re watching something and your interest makes you “invest” in the show and its characters. Netflix thinks it’s the “thriller/horror/ crime” genre that seems to get viewers committed earliest. The hardest to addict you? Shows like “Gilmore Girls. There’s a cool chart of favorite shows in this article that shows you the fan tipping point.
BBC Published:09.20.16
Swing Dancing’s Sexual Assault Scandal, And How The Lindy Hop Sommunity Handled It
“With his silky moves and electric personality, [Steven Mitchell soon rose to prominence as a swing dancer, receiving a star’s welcome in every city. When interest in swing experienced a resurgence, particularly in the 1990s, Mitchell – depending on who you ask – either rode the wave or created it. But there’s a group of women who know a very different Steven Mitchell.”
Vice Published:09.14.16
Research: Neurologically Our Brains Respond More Intensely To Reality Than To Art
“When we think we are not dealing with reality, our emotional response appears to be subdued on a neural level. This may be because of a tendency to ‘distance’ ourselves from the image, to be able to appreciate or scrutinize its shapes, colors, and composition instead of just its content.”
New York Observer Published:09.20.16
How The Alt-Right Pepe The Frog Trolls Punked The ‘Normie’ Media
“So how the hell did they gain so much notoriety the Hillary Clinton campaign felt a need to respond to their memes? What happened? It all stems from an interesting collision between those trolls and another group of people – political journalists and operatives – who have very different incentive systems.”
Select All Published:09.16.16
Oldest Surviving Fragment Of Bible Text (2,000 Years) Deciphered, Thanks To New Scanning Technology
“Nearly half a century ago, archaeologists found a charred ancient scroll in the ark of a synagogue on the western shore of the Dead Sea. The lump of carbonized parchment could not be opened or read. Its curators did nothing but conserve it, hoping that new technology might one day emerge to make the scroll legible.” That day has arrived.
New York Times Published:09.22.16
In Its First Year, LA’s Broad Museum Smashes Projected Attendance Numbers
“The attendance total of 823,216 tripled pre-opening projections and placed the Broad among the top U.S. art museums for annual visitors.
Los Angeles Business Journal Published:09.20.16
The 10 (Really 12) Most-Produced Plays In America 2016-17
Leaving aside Shakespeare and Christmas plays (which you sort of have to do), the leading character on American stages this season is a foul-mouthed sock puppet.
American Theatre Published:09.21.16
The 20 (Really 21) Most-Produced Playwrights In America 2016-17 (Not Counting Shakespeare Or Sondheim)
“American Theatre started counting the Top 20 playwrights in 2014 and so far, 2016-17 is the most diverse season yet, with 8 playwrights of color and 6 women represented, an increase from last year (with 3 and 5, respectively).”
American Theatre Published:09.21.16
Suzanne Farrell Ballet To Disband Next Year
“The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, which for the past 15 years has showcased the works of Farrell’s mentor, George Balanchine, and which is bankrolled by the Kennedy Center, will shut down after a final series of performances in December 2017, the center has announced.”
Washington Post Published:09.21.16
In The Age Of Trump, Can The New African-American Museum Reach The People Who Need To Hear Its Message?
Philip Kennicott: “The basic conservatism of the new museum, its Smithsonian look and feel, and all the trust that name inspires, will help many visitors grapple with the obvious, ugly and manifest truths of racism and its impact on black culture. But … in the years since the museum was authorized by Congress, perhaps the biggest change in American society is how many people have become comfortable with staring at the unpleasant and undeniable and saying, ‘That’s not what I see.'”
Washington Post Published:09.21.16