For Chicago dance aficionados it was among the best of times.
Archives for December 2013
More Words Yes, But We’re Not Really Having Conversations
“We’re talking all the time, in person as well as in texts, in e-mails, over the phone, on Facebook and Twitter. The world is more talkative now, in many ways, than it’s ever been. The problem, Turkle argues, is that all of this talk can come at the expense of conversation. We’re talking at each other rather than with each other.”
The Myth Of The Great American Novel
“Hardly anyone talks about the Great American Novel without a tincture of irony these days. But as Lawrence Buell shows in The Dream of the Great American Novel, his comprehensive and illuminating new study, that is nothing new: American writers have always held the phrase at arm’s length, recognizing in it a kind of hubris, if not mere boosterism.”
Reviving Books From The Dead (It’s Called “Continuation” Literature
“These days, continuation literature – as it has been hailed – falls into two camps: works that are licensed by writers’ estates and those that, like Austen, are in the public domain.”
Culture Quiz – The FT’s 2013 Culture Question Contest (AJ Readers Should Have No Problem With These)
“In a study published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport in September, researchers discovered that practitioners of a certain art form performed better after taking vitamin D supplements in winter than those who didn’t. Name the art form.”
Mayor Bloomberg’s Amazing NYC Arts Legacy
“The most prominent aspect of Mr. Bloomberg’s arts legacy is the $2 billion the city spent to transform the buildings of institutions across the city. But it also includes organizations that have come into being largely through the efforts of the mayor and his staff.”
Is This Nine-Year-Old The Next Opera Sensation?
Nine-year-old singer Amira Willighagen won Holland’s Got Talent on Saturday evening with a moving performance of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma.”
Global Fight To Attract Movie Business As California Loses Out
“Fueled by politicians doling out generous tax breaks, filmmaking talent is migrating to where the money is. The result is an incentives arms race that pits California against governments around the world and allows powerful studios –with hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal– to cherry-pick the best deals.”
Director Of The Barnes Moves On After Turbulent Tenure
“There was a fair amount of turbulence in the beginning, with one lawsuit after another. He weathered all of that in a spirit of, I would say, extreme graciousness and never lost his cool.”
Will New York’s New Mayor Lead A Return To Populist Art?
“The abrupt rise of Mr. de Blasio caught much of the city’s cultural establishment off guard and set off anxious speculation about what kind of artistic patron he might be as mayor — a question that took on particular urgency because the city budget is tight.”
Sequels Ruled At The Movies This Year (Sigh)
This was a fantastic year at the box office, but “Hollywood did it largely by serving more of the same. The five leading films at the global box office were all sequels.”
The Next Harry Potter Was Written By (Self-Published) Two French Women
“To fans, this was a story of literary injustice. Fourteen-year-old Achille, a diehard Pollock fan, wrote an open letter to the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, demanding a response from the hidebound dinosaurs of the Parisian book world.”
Curator Of Controversial ‘Hide/Seek’ Gets A Promotion At The National Portrait Gallery
“Ward maintained the curator’s presence in ‘Hide/Seek,’ defending the exhibition amid political controversy, while also, like the historian he is, seeking to understand why the controversy erupted as it did.”
Herb Geller, 85, Saxophonist And Composer
“Initially, he was prominent among the musicians who created the west coast jazz style, picking up combo gigs and recording dates with the best players in California. Later, after the death of his first wife, he relocated to Europe and established himself as a salaried artist in a subsidised orchestra.”
Where Pulp Fiction Bridges The Ideal And The Real
“Battered between competing allegiances to the idealized homeland and the reality of home, culture was often the life vest. Books, movies, clothing, and ritual — they bridged the chasm between the old world and the new by taking you to the place you could no longer go.”
Freed Pussy Riot Members Renew Call For Sochi Olympics Boycott
“They also stressed that they have no plans of capitalizing on the Pussy Riot brand or even using it in the future.”
Lawsuit Against Calder’s Art Dealer Dismissed
“The suit claimed that Perls and his family held on to hundreds of Calder’s works, cheated the artist’s estate out of tens of millions of dollars over the course of three decades and sold fake Calder works.”
The Year Music Escaped The Concert Hall
“This has been the year of sound art, a year when museums and galleries, alternative spaces and train stations, parks and Beverly Hills formal gardens, even the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva went after a decent-sized piece of the acoustical action. Why now?”
Wojciech Kilar, 81, Composer For ‘The Pianist’ And More
When Francis Ford Coppola asked the Polish composer what it took to write music like that in the movie Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Kilar cryptically replied: ‘You need to live in Katowice.'”
What Exactly Do Playwrights Do When They Reside?
“Already I’ve been using the title to open some doors. … Yet, the role itself feels delightfully and frustratingly vague.”
Actually, The Movies This Year Were Pretty Great
“Back in the movie wasteland of last January, no one could have guessed what a bounty of good films the year would bring. Not just good films, but several that measure up to our idealized notions of what the medium once was.”
Does Hollywood Actually Make A Political Difference?
Yes, sometimes, and not so much.
Finding A Magritte That’s Been Cut Up And Painted Over
That is, by the artist himself.
An Especially Excited Statue Gets A Little Cover
“Critics did not interpret the animal’s grip on the man — its paws gently resting on the man’s hips — as a bear hug. Moreover, the man appears to be experiencing sensations other than fear: He has an erection.”
Lost Van Dyck Turns Up On Antiques Roadshow (Yes, Really)
The painting “was bought for £400 by a priest in Nottingham, but experts say the restored 17th century portrait could be worth around £400,000.”
Making The Oscars Into The World’s Best, Not Just Hollywood’s Best
“There’s the Oscar lesson, proven year after year: You might win with a dark vision, but in general, keep it light and keep it in English.”
Can Changing Our Reading Habits Even The Balance?
“Establishing quotas is not inherently progressive, but it can help us examine our choices, to consider books or writers we might otherwise ignore or resist, and sometimes – as was the case for me with the wonderful Croatian author Dubravka Ugresic – recognize that we were missing out not having read them sooner.”
As Illustrations Grow More Popular, Museums Get Priced Out
“The rising prices are proving prohibitive for some; Davis says that high prices for works by Rockwell and Parrish have made purchases by museums such as his more difficult.”
Today’s top AJBlog posts 12/29/13
Very angry tweet: French birds demand share of Messiaen’s royalties
Source: Slipped Disc | Published on 2013-12-29
China’s violin method: ‘Study and train hard, according to a scientific method’
Source: Slipped Disc | Published on 2013-12-29
My “Porgy and Bess” Playlist
Source: Unanswered Question | Published on 2013-12-28
In NYC: Catching Up With Peter Schumannand the Bread and Puppet Theater
Source: Straight|Up | Published on 2013-12-27
In New York, Some Stagehands Make A Lot (A LOT) Of Money
“Even as organized labor in the United States has weakened significantly, the nearly 2,600 active members of Local 1 have retained their clout, allowing them to push for good wages and work rules.”