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‘Jane Eyre’ May Have Been Written As A Coded, Secret Love Letter
Charlotte Brontë was facing two crises: Her father’s health was in trouble, and she had for years been in love with a married, and uninterested, man. “The unstated fantasy driving the writing of Jane Eyre, which she began drafting nine months later, was in all likelihood to create a novel of romantic love that would achieve—through imagination—the fantasy fulfillment of an adulterous passion that was never to be hers. It would be a letter to him. At least in a novel, Brontë could have the heroine voice her own feelings, addressing them not to Heger but to the fictional Fairfax Rochester.”
Literary Hub Published:06.26.17
Will Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Renovation Undercut The Complex’s ‘Brutalist Truth’?
Where the brutalist designs of the 1960s meant to give the complex an aura of “high art,” the ethos of 2017 means opening up, warming up, inviting people in, including many people who don’t have tickets and never will have tickets to events inside. But Alex Bozikovic asks, “What if, 50 years from now, every public building is a glass pavilion with a humming espresso machine and slightly dated modern furniture? What if cloistered, dramatic public spaces are again in vogue”?
The Globe and Mail (Canada) Published:06.23.17
Arts Criticism Is Not A One-Way Street (Anymore)
Kris Vire: “What we have in this moment, I believe, is a theater community that feels newly empowered in the wake of last year’s explosive Profiles Theatre saga to root out bad behavior within its ranks, and a new generation of artists in the social-media age who believe criticism should be a back-and-forth conversation with many voices participating.” (Not that Hedy Weiss is planning to participate, of course.)
Time Out Chicago Published:06.23.17
Audiobooks: They’re Just As Good As ‘Real’ Books
Seriously though, think of The Iliad. “Our cultural anxiety about audiobooks may have deeper roots in media and educational history, dating as far back as the beginning of the Enlightenment period, when the West made a general shift towards the privileging of sight over the other senses. After all, oral storytelling predates print and writing by thousands of years.”
The Walrus Magazine (Canada) Published:06.26.17
Before The Internet
“You would lean against the lockers with a faraway expression on your face and let people assume whatever they wanted. Like that you were a girly girl but could also be a tomboy. Or that back in your home town you’d been friends with a bunch of crows. And everyone assumed that if they saw a crow it probably knew you, because you had some kind of understanding with crows owing to undefined telepathic abilities that made you look troubled now and then but also really important. And if anyone wanted to track down an old friend of yours and write her an actual letter to find out if any of this was true, well, best of luck to them.”
The New Yorker Published:06.26.17
The Village That Used To Crank Out 60 Percent Of The World’s Art Output May Be Hitting Reset
“In the mid-2000s, Dafen’s copy industry was booming. It was at this point that auxiliary commercial avenues began to take root in the village. Quaint cafes, as well as more accessible ‘gallery shops’ (predominantly fronts for anonymous art workers and addresses from which to tout for business both wholesale and retail) lent the village lucrative tourist appeal.” But things have changed. Can Dafen become a creative hub instead of a copy factory?
Artsy Published:06.22.17
A Year In The Life Of Competitive Pun-Making
Joe Berkowitz: “The best pun I heard during the course of writing the book was: ‘I went to go shopping for cherries and microphones the other day: bought a bing, bought a boom.'”
Fast Company Published:06.13.17
Should Theatre Critics Be Focused On Issues Larger Than The Performance In Front Of Them?
Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins: “There’s a thing where just because you’re an arts journalist, you’re automatically assumed to be quote ‘woke’. But that’s actually part of what this moment is about, it’s about not being so complacent with your own perceived tolerance.”
Exuent Published:06.06.17
The Writer Who Creates Romances For An American History That Actually Happened
Beverly Jenkins’ books teach the history between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement – almost all with romance as the focus. But she’s a little tired of the miscategorization of her books. She says, “African-American is not a genre! When they put us on a separate shelf, it cuts down on discoverability for people who may be white and looking for a good book. So when people say, ‘I don’t know if I can relate to that,’ I think, ‘But you relate to werewolves and vampires and shape-shifters and all kinds of other craziness. Why can’t you relate to people who are a different race?’”
Salon Published:06.25.17
Good News: Google Will Stop Scanning All Of Your Gmail To Help With Ad Targeting
Why? Because they care? Because they’re not doing evil? Ha! No: Because, even though the practice is only for personal email and not corporate email, the scanning “has made it difficult for Google to find and retain corporate clients for its cloud services business … due to general confusion over Google’s business tactics and an overall apprehension to trust the company with sensitive data.”
The Verge Published:06.23.17
Will Performers Go On Strike? SAG-AFTRA Membership Has Authorized One
They say that “the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has pushed for ‘outrageous rollbacks'” during negotiations. The contract covers 160,000 performers in film and TV, so … that’s a lot.
Variety Published:06.25.17
So Far, Audiences For Broadway’s ‘1984’ Have Fainted, Vomited, And Been Arrested
So that’s going well, then? “‘I’m not surprised, since this experience is unique, bold and immersive,’ [said star] Olivia Wilde, who broke her tailbone and dislocated her rib during previews.”
The Hollywood Reporter Published:06.24.17
Fans May Never Hear All Of The Music In Prince’s Vault
The artist’s estate is in what the judge overseeing it calls a state of “personal and corporate mayhem.”
The New York Times Published:06.25.17
The Writer Who Can Help Make A Show About Eating Disorders Both Good And Right
Marti Noxon won fame on Buffy the Vampire Slaver and Angel. Now she’s in the middle of promoting a movie for Netflix, filming a series with HBO, finishing a series with Bravo, and starting the first series of a three-year deal with Skydance Media. “I’m somebody’s Joss [Whedon] now!” she says.
Vulture Published:06.25.17
New York Says Goodbye To A Lot Of Midsize Galleries
It’s not a pleasant trend, whether it’s in London, New York or Los Angeles. Indeed, as more small and mid-size galleries merge or close, “some see the solidifying of a class society.”
The New York Times Published:06.25.17
The Last Moments Of A Prima Ballerina’s Life With The ABT, In Photo Essay Form
It’s a ritual: “A ballerina’s farewell — especially at American Ballet Theater — is a time-honored drama. Rose petals fall like rain from the rafters, fellow dancers parade out to deliver bouquets, and audience members crowd the aisles, roaring as if at a rock concert.”
The New York Times Published:06.24.17
An Artist’s Design For An LGBT Memorial In New York Reflects Desire To Bond With The City
Artist Anthony Goicolea: “It feels like there are certain shapes and patterns that are encoded in our DNA as humans that transcend any particular culture and speak to how we are unified in the larger scheme,” he said. “I wanted to create a space that feels familiar, even though it is new.”
THe New York Times Published:06.25.17
The Writer Lidia Yuknavitch, Who Reinvented The Memoir, Says She’ll Never Tire Of ‘Swimming Within Language’
Her book The Chronology of Water ends with an interview with her editor Rhonda Hughes, and here’s why: “What you want is an editor who is dying to go with you into your material, to ride the waves, to dive down or kick up, to swim the waters of your imagination. The interview was a chance to show readers that no book happens without collaboration. All books take many mammals and I count my lucky stars I crossed stardust paths with Rhonda.”
The Millions Published:06.22.17
The Huge Price Someone – Maybe All Of Us – Pays For Empathy In ‘S-Town’
The podcast, originally a discussion between host Brian Reed and a man in the town he calls “S-Town,” is now a genuine phenomenon. But what are the ethics of so many of knowing so much about the life of someone we’ve never met? “None of this is easy. Or ethically clear. But it is moving in a way that I haven’t felt in a long time. One of the things a large and pluralistic society denies us is proximity. And with that denial, the lives of our fellow citizens are harder to imagine, creating a kind of empathetic poverty that erodes our shared life.”
The Rumpus Published:06.23.17
The Making Of GLOW, Netflix’s New Women Wrestling Comedy
For one thing, all of the actors had to learn how to wrestle. “We knew from the beginning GLOW was a show about bodies and women using their bodies in different ways that they hadn’t used them before, and using bodies in ways that we as an audience haven’t seen before. It felt pretty important that, to honestly tell that story, we should show you the women’s real bodies going through this experience.”
The Hollywood Reporter Published:06.23.17
What Do We Know About Shakespeare’s Politics?
Not a lot because, well, he was a playwright. But “some themes recur; and some messages in the action of his plays are too powerful to miss. Such themes are most abundant in the four plays written at the height of Shakespeare’s powers. In Polonius’s classification, they are tragical-comical-historical. They are about the state in moments of stress, and about individual men acting politically. In these four plays, six themes emerge.”
The American Interest Published:06.20.17
The Slow And Semi-Secret Death Of The Electric Guitar
The industry (and music in general) needs more guitar heroes if it’s going to survive – or else technology, and the electronic music it produces, will take over.
The Washington Post Published:06.23.17
Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Museum To Reconfigure, Expand, And ‘Become One With The Park’
There are several phases of construction planned, but “perhaps the most striking feature of the planned expansion is the creation of a vast, light-filled entry hall where the current courtyard and Bunshaft galleries exist. Renderings show the space as a glass-walled public plaza with an elevated walkway providing access to the existing auditorium on the south side and a new restaurant that will spill onto the east lawn of the gallery in the summer months.”
Buffalo News Published:06.21.17
Top AJBlog Posts For The Weekend Of 06.25.17
Four Companies, Six Dances
Karole Armitage, Jaqulyn Buglisi, Elisa Monte, and Jennifer Muller join forces. Elisa Monte’s Day’s Residue. Left rear: Clymene Baugher. Jumping (foreground): Scott Willits. Plus Thomas Varvaro, Wade Watson, and Alrick Thomas. Photo: Darial Sneed As … read more
AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2017-06-24Lloyd Cole and All the Poets
YOUR humble blogger has been a fan of Lloyd Cole since songs like Lost Weekend and Why I Love Country Music showed up on “alternative” radio in the mid-’80s. I’ve seen him perform and … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrashPublished 2017-06-23Ethics and Critics: Conflicts of Interest Infect NY Times Reviews
If a newspaper accepted outside compensation for favorable coverage, that would be clearly be a violation of journalistic ethics—a conflict of interest, potentially compromising the integrity of its reports. That’s essentially what’s happening, though, on … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2017-06-23The Rust-Belt Country House Opera that Pleases All the Senses
PELLEAS ET MÉLISANDE by Debussy;Garsington Opera at Wormsley;14 June 2017;Mélisande- Andrea Carroll;Conductor – Jac van Steen;Director – Michael Boyd;Designer – Tom Piper;Lighting Designer – Malcolm Rippeth;Movement director – Liz Ranken;Photo credit: © CLIVE BARDA/ArenaPAL; … read more
AJBlog: Plain EnglishPublished 2017-06-23This show is not about Donald Trump! (Really!)
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Broadway transfer of a British stage version of 1984. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Like all great parables, George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” long ago cast off … read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2017-06-23AJBlogs Published:06.25.17
Conjuring The Ghost Of Leonard Bernstein At The Dakota
Yes, this is a real thing that happens. Larry and Toby Milstein are the 20-something children of the (very wealthy) people who live in the apartment where Bernstein used to live. “Inspired by the many artists who have called the Dakota home, and spurred by their own substantial arts philanthropy, these millennial billion-heirs have taken to hosting séances that are attended by their fashionable set of well-connected peers.”
The New York Times Published:06.24.17
The Walker Mounts A Show Of Jimmie Durham’s Art To A Lot More Criticism From Native American Communities
Cherokee artist America Meredith says the problem is that Durham has no documented links to actually being Cherokee, and yet, “Art historians have really latched onto him. And he represents us. He’s occupying a space. He’s written more about than any actual Cherokee artist in the literature.”
Minnesota Public Radio Published:06.23.17
Philippe Auguin Is Leaving The Washington National Opera, But What Does It Mean When A Music Director Leaves?
Anne Midgette: “It’s important not to cling too tightly to tradition, but it remains unclear exactly what vision WNO, under Zambello, is offering to replace it.”
The Washington Post Published:06.23.17
The Royal Institute Of British Architects Picks Its 49 Favorite Buildings, Including A Biomass Plant
Also on the list? A tomb.
BBC Published:06.22.17
A Deep Dive Into The Sudden Wave Of Screen Time For Muslim Men In Love
Yay, more stories for South Asian Muslims! Well, South Asian Muslim men, straight men, with white girlfriends, anyway. “This fantasy doesn’t have much room for South Asian women. Their choices are reflective of the stubborn limitations of an industry where straight men still dominate, and where whiteness remains an integral component to what love looks like onscreen.”
BuzzFeed Published:06.24.17
Why Bong Joon Ho’s New Girl-And-Her-Six-Ton-Pig Flick Isn’t With A Studio, But With Netflix
Why Netflix? Well, “plot points include a pignapping, Mija’s desperate pursuit, a bumbling Animal Liberation Front troop, an insecure corporate villainess (played with pitch-perfect iciness by Ms. Swinton) and a foray into the grisly mechanics of factory farming.” The last bit is where studios drew the line.
The New York Times Published:06.23.17
The World Might Be Going To Hell In A Handbasket, But These Designers Are Trying To Make It Look Pretty
For instance, at the London Design Biennale, “Guatemala, which ties for sixth place in the Global Emotions Report, will show an installation about the community action taking place in Santa Catarina Palopó. This town on the volcanic shores of Lake Atitlán is reinventing itself as a kind of conceptual art, using the paintbrush to boost civic pride and tourism. Its residents have become involved in a two-year scheme in which they are painting their houses in bold Mayan patterns, with a strict but vibrant palette of five colours sourced from local textiles.”
The Guardian (UK) Published:06.23.17
(Some Of) The Last 20 Years Of LGBT Literature
Of course, LGBT lit goes back way farther than 1997, but here’s a sampler from the NYT in honor of Pride Month.
The New York Times Published:06.23.17
An Entire Generation Missed Seeing Asian Americans On Their Screens
What (the heck?!) happened between The Joy Luck Club and the just-wrapped Crazy Rich Asians?
HuffPost Published:06.24.17
This Composer Has Led The Way In Experimental Music For 50 Years, And He’s Not Stopping
Roscoe Mitchell: “I’ve always believed in studying music across the board. I’ve never been fascinated with putting myself in certain categories. Especially now that there’s a lot of folks out there that want to know how this improvisational thing works. And the way that I would describe that, of course, is like composition in real time.”
The New York Times Published:06.23.17
Feminist Dystopias Are Everywhere, And The Observer Wonders Why
Well, there’s actually a lot to talk about. Or create. “Sci-fi lets you look at a society where things are done in other ways; ways too complicated to expound on in an essay. How could you generate a superficially gender-equal, godless society and then expose its failures? It is just too complex.”
The Observer (UK) Published:06.24.17
The Structure – And Meaning – Of ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ Ballet
The story is purely about royal succession, which you’d think wouldn’t appeal to Americans. (And indeed, the ballet used to be reserved for touring European companies.) But there’s more:
“The fairy godmothers whom the monarchs invite to the heiress Aurora’s christening in the Prologue take the drama into a new, larger dimension: pure classicism. They make this a ballet about ballet itself — ballet as a language of harmonious idealism, in which radiant physical geometry keeps marrying music.”The New York Times Published:06.23.17
The Tallest Building West Of The Mississippi Makes Its Debut In L.A.
The building “with a curling lobby skylight that looks like a ski jump reflects the resurgence of downtown Los Angeles as the city’s cultural center and economic engine” but also reflects the importance of Koreans and Korean Americans to, and in, the city.
Los Angeles Times Published:06.23.17
Harry Potter’s Been Around For 20 Years, And The Series’ Readers/Watchers Remain Ensorcelled
The original readers are fully integrated in adult life now; what did the series teach them? “A 2014 study found that teenagers who identified with Harry displayed more tolerance towards refugees, immigrants and LGBTQ people. In 2016, another study found that Harry Potter readers were less likely to vote for the then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.”
The Guardian (UK) Published:06.24.17
Did The Producers And Writers Of The New Tupac Biopic Infringe On A Journalist’s Made-Up Character?
The journalist, Kevin Powell, is suing based on many similarities to his work, including that of a character who in his seris of 1990s Vibe articles was a “composite character.” In addition, he “argues that a bulk of the film appears to be based on his jailhouse interviews with [Tupac Shakur].”
Los Angeles Times Published:06.23.17
The Showrunner For ‘Power’ Says Every Character Is Based On Her (And Shakespeare)
“What are some references you’ve used to frame the storytelling on the show and move the characters and narratives forward?
“A lot of Shakespeare. I’ve used Richard III because he’s ruthless in getting what he wants and then ghosts of the people he killed start haunting him.”The New York Times Published:06.23.17
The Era Of Super Festivals May Be Ending, With Niche Music Events Springing (Back) Up
The super-festival arena may be oversaturated now, considering the collapse of two recent supposed new fests. One promoter says: “We want to under-promise and over-deliver. I don’t feel like any promoter today should ever feel like ‘I’ve got this.'”
Los Angeles Times Published:06.23.17
Hans Breder, Mentor Of Ana Mendieta And Charles Ray, Leader Of ‘Intermedia’ Art, Has Died At 81
Breder left New York to take a faculty position at the University of Iowa in 1966, and he soon established the first interdisciplinary art focus in the country. “Increasingly drawn to conceptual art and the radical political performance art being practiced by the Viennese Actionists, he asked permission to create a program that would embrace video and performance art and encourage students to move back and forth across artistic frontiers — in general, to throw off all creative constraint.”
The New York Times Published:06.23.17
Galleries Are Exploring New Models – And New Kinds Of Sites – To Break The Mold And Succeed
Many gallerists believe “the future of the mid-tier gallery is seasonal, project-based or off the beaten path.”
Financial Times Published:06.23.17
What Is The Future For Classical Music (Yes, It Has A Future)?
Well, let’s start with the good news: “In any given month an extraordinary 30% of the U.S. population listens to classical music on some device. That translates to 100 million people in our country alone! Another happy number … is that more than 40 million Americans sing in a chorus.”
Los Angeles Times Published:06.23.17
What German And Austrian Orchestras Were Willing To Do Under The Third Reich
“What the two orchestras had in common was a nationalistic ethos, a belief in the superiority of Austro-German musical culture that approached triumphalism. One of the darkest manifestations of this ethos was their shared reluctance to hire Jews. The Berlin Philharmonic employed only four Jewish players in 1933, while the Vienna Philharmonic contained only 11 Jews at the time of the Anschluss, none of whom was hired after 1920.”
Commentary Published:06.14.17
Van Cliburn Was The Biggest Music Star In The World. and Then He Wasn’t. What Happened?
“It seems that what happened was that Cliburn simply stopped growing, as though he was trapped in a creative stasis like a bug in amber. One thinks of James O’Neill, a distinguished actor who was the father of Eugene O’Neill. In later life, he only took on one role—Dumas’s Edmond Dantès in The Count of Monte Cristo—and eventually played it more than six thousand times around the world. He made a great deal of money, but reproached himself for what he considered the squandering of his gifts. Likewise, Cliburn returned again and again to the Tchaikovsky concerto, long after he had ceased to have fresh insights into it.”
New York Review of Books Published:06.22.17
Jobs Of The Future For Humans Will Require Emotional Intelligence
“Only a tiny percentage of people in the post-industrial world will ever end up working in software engineering, biotechnology or advanced manufacturing. Just as the behemoth machines of the industrial revolution made physical strength less necessary for humans, the information revolution frees us to complement, rather than compete with, the technical competence of computers. Many of the most important jobs of the future will require soft skills, not advanced algebra.”
Aeon Published:06.22.17
Is The Controversy Over Hedy Weiss’ Chicago Theatre Review Overblown?
Theater is of course a highly public endeavor, and the world outside is a big bad place, with lions and tigers and critics who have opinions. If its practitioners want safety, they should practice their craft behind closed doors.
Columbia Journalism Review Published:06.20.17
Why Performance Art Has Become A Hot New Thing (Again)
As performance art becomes more popular, it is changing. Many are embracing elements of dance, film, theatre and sculpture, even street theatre and rap music. “Performance art was stuck in the 1970s: protest, people cutting themselves,” RoseLee Goldberg, the founder of Performa, said last year. “Some years ago I wondered: why don’t we have visually dazzling, emotional and intellectually challenging performance? Why does everything have to be a single gesture performed on the Lower East Side?”
The Economist Published:06.20.17
Turning Simon Rattle Into A Digital Abstract
“The London Symphony Orchestra teamed with techies from the University of Portsmouth and Vicon Motion Systems, who captured Rattle’s movements while conducting, appropriately, Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Digital artist Tobias Gremmler was then called in to convert the gestures into animated films.”
NPR Published:06.20.17