AJ Four Ways:
Full View (by category) | Text Only (by date) | Text (by category) | headlines only
The British Airways ‘IT Problem’ Meltdown Strands Curtis Institute Musicians In London
The first of two groups got as far as the gate when all flights were suddenly canceled, which looks like it was the right thing to do: “When members of the first Curtis group finally got through passport control — as if they were reentering a country they never actually left — they found their luggage right where they had checked it. Apparently, the conveyor belts didn’t even work.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer Published:05.27.17
What, Aside From The Next Big Hit, Do Indie Distributors Look For When They Go To Cannes?
Not things that would work easily in the comfort of your own home: “The very obvious, generic star packages [that look good] on paper no longer necessarily work at the box office; the generic is consumed online at home [on streaming platforms]. If you want to get people to go to a cinema, you really need to have something special, distinctive; it’s got to be an event, something that people talk about.”
Variety Published:05.26.17
Top AJBlogs For The Weekend Of 05.28.17
All the Poets: Rhiannon Giddens
The second installment of my Los Angeles Review of Books — All the Poets, in which musicians discuss their literary influences — went up the other day: Rhiannon Giddens, who earned her reputation with … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrashPublished 2017-05-28How to Talk about Saving the NEA
The President’s 2018 budget includes just enough funding for staff time required to shut down the NEA and NEH. Arts advocates and administrators have responded with pleas that federal arts funding is important and can’t … read more
AJBlog: The Bright RidePublished 2017-05-28Recent Listening: Charlie Shoemake, Teacher
Charlie Shoemake Trio And Quartet: Central Coasting (CCJAZZI) In addition to being a premier jazz vibraphonist, Charlie Shoemake has long devoted himself to helping young musicians develop their skills. After he and … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2017-05-26AJBlogs Published:05.28.17
The Novelists Who Own Bookstores Tell Us What To Read This Summer
Hey, good news: Novelist Emma Straub’s “Books Are Magic is opening in the midst of a renaissance for independent booksellers. The American Booksellers Association counted 1,775 members around the country in 2016, up from 1,410 in 2010.” (Now here’s what to buy from them.)
The New York Times Published:05.25.17
Movie Credits Are Long, But Maybe They Should Be Even Longer
The history was that only the main players got credits – at the beginning of the film. Then the unions started to gain more clout, and “as productions grew more lavish and more complicated, more and more crew members were needed. But in the age of celluloid, studios had to be mindful of how long their credits would be. Film was more expensive to work with and process, so each added reel had an impact on the budget.”
The New York Times Published:05.26.17
How Instagram Helped Poet Rupi Kaur Find Her Audience – And Sell 1.4M Books (So Far)
The 24-year-old Canadian poet became famous when Instagram banned a self-portrait in which she was lying on her bed, with sheets stained by menstrual blood. That banning got her 1.3 million followers to the site, where she publishes poetry and illustrations. She credits social media for its openness: “I used to submit to anthologies and magazines when I was a student – but I knew I was never going to be picked up. All their writing was, you know, about the Canadian landscape or something. And my poem is about this woman with her legs spread open.”
The Observer (UK) Published:05.27.17
The GIF, Which Transformed The Internet (And Sparked Millions Of Pronunciation Arguments), Turns 30
And, honestly, GIFs are living their best lives right now. “Twitter has a GIF button and even Apple added GIF search to its iOS messaging app. Such mainstream approval would have seemed unthinkable even a decade ago, when GIFs had the cultural cachet of blinking text and embedded MIDI files. But today they’re ubiquitous.”
Wired Published:05.28.17
What Happened With Netflix And Baz Luhrman’s ‘The Get Down’?
Though Netflix doesn’t release numbers, the series was expensive – and, according to one analytics firm, not as “buzzy” either as other Netflix series, like “The Crown,” or HBO’s also-canceled music series, “Vinyl.”
Variety Published:05.26.17
Old Vic, Nearby Pubs Evacuated Due To Terror Threat
Tensions remain high after the bombing of a pop concert in Manchester. “On social media, theatregoers said they and the cast had been moved to the nearby Imperial War Museum gardens.” The police later said the incident was “not suspicious” but didn’t elaborate.
BBC Published:05.27.17
Russian Law Enforcement Targets A Controversial Theatre Director
This does not look good. “At the storm’s center is Kirill Serebrennikov, the virtuoso Russian stage director behind Moscow’s innovative, and often controversial, Gogol Center theater. … With the company’s actors still detained by masked officers in the theater on Tuesday, hundreds of supporters from artist and journalist circles began gathering outside, among them former members of the punk protest band Pussy Riot and loyalist film directors like Fyodr Bandarchuk.”
The Washington Post Published:05.27.17
El Museo Del Barrio Fires A Senior Executive Who Raised Concerns
From Berta Colón’s letter to the board, in which she accused a co-executive of employee intimidation: “Staff is threatened with the possibility of being fired, they are pitted against each other. … During this period of transition without an executive director, Carlos has created an environment that promotes distrust, fear of retaliation and isolation.” And the museum’s newly hired executive director may not yet have permission to work in the U.S.
The New York Times Published:05.26.17
The Agony Of Ballet Feet
Regular ballet slippers are no good for dancers’ feet, and pointe shoes? Forget it. “While they may run, jump, squat, leap and pivot like any NBA star, dancers do it without shock absorption, arch support or any foot-comfort features whatsoever.”
The Washington Post Published:05.26.17
Why Did A Japanese Billionaire Decide To Spend $110 Million On A Basquiat?
Yusaku Maezawa has a collection of Basquiats, and a lot of other art, and plans to open a museum in Japan to showcase it all – and to lend art to other museums as well. “Mr. Maezawa — who does not work with an art adviser — said he was driven entirely by his love of art and not financial investment. ‘I just follow my instinct,’ he said. ‘When I think it’s good, I buy it.'”
The New York Times Published:05.26.17
A New Literary Museum That – Maybe! – Doesn’t Just Recreate Inequities In U.S. History
In Chicago’s new American Writers Museum: “If the idea is to curate — to present to the world, in some official capacity, the Most Important People in American Literary History — then the battle is unwinnable. There’s no way we’re all ever going to agree. We see certain writers as canonical because we were always told they were canonical.”
Electric Literature Published:05.24.17
When A Private Owner Of Looted Art Won’t Return An Artwork, It Goes Up For Auction
One of the heirs of the pre-Nazi-looting owners: “We brokered a compromise, which we signed. It is not really satisfactory, but it is acceptable. It was the best that we could achieve. Ideally, it would have been returned in total to our family. That wasn’t possible, so we settled for what we could get.”
The New York Times Published:05.28.17
A Movie Theatre In Austin Adds A ‘Woman-Only’ Screening of Wonder Woman, And A Lot Of Guys Freak. Out.
Wow, did the Alamo Drafthouse stir up a hornets’ nest. But hey. “‘That providing an experience where women truly reign supreme has incurred the wrath of trolls only serves to deepen our belief that we’re doing something right,’ creative manager Morgan Hendrix told the publication. ‘As a result, we will be expanding this program across the country and inviting women everywhere to join us as we celebrate this iconic superheroine in our theaters.”
The Hollywood Reporter Published:05.26.17
What Does Elena Ferrante Think About ‘My Brilliant Friend’ Being Adapted For The Screen?
In a Q&A with the author, a New York Times journalist gets to ask her many questions about the process of watching her book turn into TV. Ferrante: “No real person will ever match the image that I or a reader have in our minds. This is because the written word, of course, defines but by nature leaves much to reader’s imagination. The visual image instead shrinks those margins. It is destined to always leave out something that the words inspire — something that always matters.”
The New York Times Published:05.26.17
The Summer Music – Especially Opera – Competition In The UK Is Pretty Fierce
There are betrayals, arguments, backstabbing … and it’s all good for those who love to watch classical music outside in the summer. “Rival conductors’ batons may not yet be clashing in combat, and it has not quite come to picnic-hampers-at-dawn, but there is a new and marked element of serious competition between the growing number of rivals.”
The Observer (UK) Published:05.27.17
Denis Johnson, Who Wrote Of The Down And Out And Desperate, And Inspired Thousands Of Other Writers, Has Died At 67
He published a book of poetry at 19 and got his degrees from the University of Iowa, but then addictions derailed him for years. “Mr. Johnson initially believed that sobriety would damage his creativity, but later realized that his addictions were not fueling much writing.” When he got sober, he wrote many things, including Jesus’ Son, a beloved book of linked short stories.
The New York Times Published:05.26.17
Talking With Singer Charlotte Church About Growing Up In The Spotlight
Yikes. “Church, 31, has been famous for nearly all her life. The cautionary tabloid narrative is well-worn, and like most fairy stories it contains not a little misogyny. She became famous at 11 as the little girl who could sing arias, the ‘Voice of an Angel’. She soon became public property.”
The Guardian (UK) Published:05.27.17
The Guy Who Won The Mall Of America Writer In Residence Knew Just How To Get It
He’s a poet, and he has to string together residencies and gigs like any poet: “The winner, a poet named Brian Sonia-Wallace, has also won a highly publicized Amtrak residency. And a closer inspection of his resume revealed he had also been an artist-in-residence for the city of Los Angeles and had held similar gigs with the National Park Service and even Dollar Shave Club.”
The New York Times Published:05.26.17
The Physical Brain Versus Consciousness
“At its most general, the hard problem of consciousness is the expression of a familiar kind of puzzlement or mental cramp. We know that the brain is causally responsible, in some way or another, for consciousness – but we remain utterly baffled as to how its fatty, yoghurty matter could be up to the task. The puzzlement is not restricted to philosophers, neuroscientists or those who know a lot about the brain.”
Times Literary Supplement Published:05.25.17
Italian Court Cancels Appointments Of Five Museum Directors
“Italy has over the past two years recruited 20 highly-qualified new directors, seven of them foreigners, to shake up institutions which are richly-endowed with cultural treasures but often poorly run and badly promoted. But a regional court ruled that five of the appointments were null and void, saying that the selection process had not been transparent, that some interviews had been conducted via Skype and that the one foreigner appointed should never have been eligible.”
The Telegraph (UK) Published:05.25.17
Jamaica Kincaid At 68: What I’ve Learned
“The thing that I am branded with and the thing that I am denounced for, I now claim as my own. I am illegitimate, I am ambiguous. In some way I actually claim the right to ambiguity, and the right to clarity. It does me no good to say, ‘Well, I reject this and I reject that.’ I feel free to use everything, or not, as I choose.”
LitHub Published:05.25.17
What Beethoven Teaches Us About Hearing Loss
“The extraordinary thing about Beethoven’s hearing loss journey is that he found a way forward at every stage. Once he accepted his deafness at Heiligenstadt, it was no longer a source of shame, and he was open about it from then onwards. Even for the last 10 years of his life, when he could hear nothing, he kept composing. Many people will know the story of his conducting what seems to be an orchestra in his head at the premiere of his 9th Symphony. Eyes still shut, he had to be stopped and shown the smiling musicians, the appreciative audience applauding.”
The Guardian Published:05.25.17
At This Point, Education Is Technology
When I say that education technology is not new, I’m not arguing that technologies do not change over time; or that our institutions, ideas, experiences, societies do not change in part because of technologies. But when we talk about change – when we tell stories about technological change – we must consider how technologies, particularly modern technologies like computers, emerged from a certain history, from certain institutions; how technologies are as likely to re-inscribe traditional practices as to alter them. We must consider how technology operates, in Franklin’s words, as “an agent of power and control.”
Hacked Education Published:05.24.17
How A Great Berlin Theatre Is Stepping Away From Great Theatre
“The stage of spoken-word theatre is indebted to a sense of the world that is centred on the human. On the stage of the 21st century, however, we find a new distribution of power, a new dynamic of creatures, ghosts, machines, objects. The things we once invented to define identities or let them manifest themselves on stage have lost all traction. The [human] subject – is that even a topic anymore these days?”
Dispositio Published:05.20.17
What Makes A Good Conductor?
Angel Gil-Ordóñez: “Authority through knowledge. People respect you if you know what you are asking them to do. Then you have to be able to convey what you want. All simply. Through gestures and communication that goes beyond language. I think the orchestra is the most extraordinary achievement of humanity. Can you imagine something more sophisticated than that? One hundred people without verbal communication playing together for one hour? That goes beyond everything. Beyond thinking. To me [it] is the most incredible achievement. People making music together. It’s a miracle.”
Washington Post Published:05.25.17
LA County Museum’s New Home Won’t Just Be About A Building; It Seeks To Change The Ways We See Art
“In its new home, expect LACMA’s permanent collection to break all the rules. The permanent collection won’t exactly be permanent. LACMA instead plans to install the collection as a continuing series of temporary exhibitions — cross-cultural and interdisciplinary. An impermanent permanent collection, the scheme is unprecedented.”
Los Angeles Times Published:05.25.17
Comic Timing Is Something Most Of Us Completely Misunderstand
“It may be that our sense of the importance of comic timing comes more from how we perceive jokes than from how they’re delivered. And, for comedians, the timing after the punch line” – as opposed to before, which is what most laypeople assume – “is what really counts.” Thomas MacMillan explains.
Science of Us Published:05.25.17
Neuroscientists Say Listening To This Song Will Significantly Reduce Your Stress
“Sound therapies have long been popular as a way of relaxing and restoring one’s health. For centuries, indigenous cultures have used music to enhance well-being and improve health conditions. Now, neuroscientists out of the UK have specified which tunes give you the most bang for your musical buck. In fact, listening to that one song — “Weightless” — resulted in a striking 65 percent reduction in participants’ overall anxiety, and a 35 percent reduction in their usual physiological resting rates.”
Published:10.26.16
Private Prison Sued For Censoring Inmates’ Reading Material
“A private Utah-based corporation that runs the North Central Correctional Complex in Marion, Ohio, has been sued by the nonprofit Human Rights Defense Center for blocking inmates from receiving books on ‘criminal justice policies, legal research, health care issues and other similar topics.'”
Melville House Published:05.26.17
The Universe, As Rendered And Explained By Music
Without interfering with its orbits in any way, by just presenting the data scaled up to our range of hearing, we hear what we readily identify as harmonious music.
WBGO Published:05.23.17
Movie Theater Plans Women-Only Showing Of ‘Wonder Woman’ – And (Some) Men Flip Out
The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin had the idea, and it sold out so fast that they added a second date and plan to extend the idea to other cities. What’s more, the Austin Drafthouse’s social media person deftly handled all the male butthurt on Facebook. (includes examples of butthurt)
BuzzFeed Published:05.25.17
What Exactly Is Going To Happen In “The Shed”?
“The opportunity for us to design a ground-up building for the arts forced us to ask the question: ‘What will art look like in 10 years? 20 years? 30 years?’ And the answer was that we simply could not know. Artists today are working across disciplines, in all media and all sizes. That will continue to change. The one thing that we could always be certain of is that there would always be a need for space, a need for structural loading capacity, and a need for electrical power.”
Artnet Published:05.25.17
The Universal Remote Control: A Brief History
“[It’s] a device that made millions of devices that work similarly but are slightly different bend to its will. In the age of IFTTT, Alexa, Zapier, and Siri, this device has a surprising amount of value and deserves to be studied. And,” writes Ernie Smith, “I’m just the guy to do it.”
Tedium Published:05.25.17
‘A Doll’s House, Part 2’: How Playwright Lucas Hnath Put Together The Script
It was by no means a matter of presenting a finished piece to the director and cast: in fact, the actors – especially Chris Cooper, who’s used to working in film – were astonished at how much they were allowed to shape their characters’ lines. Peter Marks reports on the process, which leaned heavily on what Hnath calls “scraps.”
Washington Post Published:05.25.17
‘Of Course It’s A Sculpture – It’s A Downward Sculpture Rather Than An Upward Sculpture’ – Anish Kapoor Talks About ‘Descension’, His Whirlpool
“One thing that makes it a sculpture is that there’s obviously artifice to it. It is artifice posing as a natural phenomenon. It’s obviously been made, but the fiction is that it hasn’t been made. That tension is an important part of the work.”
ARTnews Published:05.25.17
Why Don’t More Ballet Companies Have Female Artistic Directors? Wendy Whelan Has An Idea
“I often get calls when a spot opens up, but I don’t see myself in that position. I believe myself to not be a director because of the system. Having a male artistic director is a tradition that’s passed down, and it becomes ingrained and it’s like, ‘Oh, fuck off.’ It’s a fake system. It’s hard to break it down unless you talk about it, and I think talking about it will slowly open it up, but even a feminist ballerina like me can still realize that I can be biased at times without knowing it.”
Vulture Published:05.24.17
Did The NEH Just Surrender To Its Own Abolition?
Earlier this week, in response to the budget the Trump administration submitted to Congress, the National Endowment for the Humanities released this statement: “The White House has requested that Congress appropriate approximately $42 million to NEH for the orderly closure of the agency. This amount includes funds to meet [existing] matching grant offers … as well as funds to cover administrative expenses and salaries associated with the closure.” Is the NEH giving up on its own existence? Not really, no, as Jillian Steinhauer reports.
Hyperallergic Published:05.25.17
A Closer Look At The Big, New Projects MassMoCA Is Putting In Its Big, New Space
James Turrell will have nine different immersive light installations. Jenny Holzer will be showing 200 silk-screened paintings and 21 stone paintings as well as several LED displays, all (of course) featuring text. Laurie Anderson will be playing with virtual reality.
New York Times Published:05.26.17
Curtis Institute Orchestra’s Big BBC Interview Cut Short: They Had To Evacuate The Building
The Curtis Symphony Orchestra, on tour under conductor Osmo Vänskä, had arrived in London and were being featured on BBC Radio 3’s live music-news-and-talk program, In Tune. A small group had just played part of a Mozart flute quintet, and a graduating violinist was about to play a duet with the school’s president, Roberto Díaz, when the announcement came …
Philadelphia Inquirer Published:05.25.17
Planners Of London’s New Concert Hall Should Learn Some Lessons From Hamburg’s New Elbphilharmonie – But Can They?
And no, it’s not just that the new hall shouldn’t run 920% over budget. Unfortunately, as Jack May writes, the lessons from Hamburg may be things that London just isn’t situated to do.
CityMetric Published:05.18.17
Here’s A Dance Job You Never Knew Existed: Restaurant Choreographer
The idea is to teach staffers about both non-verbal communication (with customers and each other) and about gracefully negotiating tight spaces. Says one restaurant choreographer, “I went into it thinking it would be almost like movement coaching, but the amount of dance terminology, spatial composition, effort and tempo decisions left me feeling each experience couldn’t be more of a choreography gig if I tried.”
Dance Magazine Published:05.24.17
What Skills Do Workers In Arts And Culture Really Need? We Analyzed Millions Of Job Ads To Find Out
The researchers found that the skills required fall into five clusters, only two of which are self-evidently “creative.” The other three “are not inherently creative and [are] therefore at risk of being overlooked, but … are essential to enabling the creative process.”
ArtsProfessional Published:05.24.17
Alexander Burdonsky, Russian Stage Director And Stalin’s Grandson, Dead At 75
For 45 years he worked at the People’s Army Theater, the main company for the Soviet and then the Russian armed forces. “Aside from his theater work, Mr. Burdonsky kept a low profile, using his mother’s surname. He said he had never visited Stalin’s grave, by the Kremlin wall.”
New York Times Published:05.24.17
Who’s Up To Become UNESCO’s Next Director-General?
Among the candidates to succeed Irina Bokova this November is former French culture minister Audrey Azoulay, the only one of nine who’s from Europe or North America. Three of the candidates are women, and four are from the Arab world.
The Art Newspaper Published:05.26.17
Roger Tomlinson: Measuring An Audience? But What Are You Measuring?
“I have been a champion of audience data for a long time. I conducted my first year-long audience survey at the Vic in Stoke on Trent in 1969, supervised by Keele University. I have been commissioning research surveys for over 40 years and the Arts Council published my book ‘Boxing Clever’ on turning data into audiences in 1993… So, I ought to be welcoming the concept of quality metrics and what Culture Counts proposes to deliver for Arts Council England… But I am left with a lot of uneasy questions, mostly methodological.”
ArtsProfessional Published:05.23.17
Scotland’s National Orchestra Gets A New Music Director
Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård first appeared with the RSNO in November 2009 as a last-minute replacement for a sick conductor and went on to lead lauded performances of Shostakovich’s Symphony No11 in Edinburgh and Glasgow. He was appointed to the position of Principal Guest Conductor in 2011 and since then has appeared with the RSNO up to four times each season.”
Glasgow Herald Published:05.25.17
How Julie Kent Is Making Over Washington Ballet
Unlike some incoming directors, Ms. Kent has not tried to remake the company in her image by quickly replacing large numbers of dancers with her recruits. (S he has not let anyone go, though she has added four dancers.) Ruthlessness is not her style.
The New York Times Published:05.23.17