“Nick Starr has claimed the West End’s current ‘old and ageing’ playhouses are unable to accommodate [any] contemporary theatremaking … that is more innovative in form than revivals of old plays, and said new venues were needed to provide homes for theatremakers who want to create for spaces that are non-proscenium arch.”
Archives for October 2015
Los Angeles Is Hiring An Artist – To Help Reduce Traffic Deaths
“The artist will be embedded in the city’s Department of Transportation, to focus on how to save bike riders and pedestrians from being maimed or killed by automobiles.” Says the department’s general manager, “I want somebody who can understand the issues and think of them in different ways.”
A ‘Moth’ Champion Shares The Tricks For Telling Riveting Stories
Matthew Dicks, a former teacher who became a professional storyteller after winning The Moth’s StorySLAM 18 times, says that the secret is in the stakes. (podcast)
Now *Here’s* How A Cop Should Deal With A Defiant Teen – Dance With Her
Perhaps the (ex-)policeman in Columbia, SC who threw a high school student across the classroom should have followed the example of this officer in D.C. (video)
Plan For Ground Zero Arts Center Has Changed Again
“The performing-arts center planned for the World Trade Center complex is shifting shape yet again, as its leaders work to deliver a slimmed-down project that can be built for roughly half the cost.”
Small Towns Using The Arts To Attract New Business And People? It’s Working In Wisconsin
“The arts are playing an increasingly important role in stimulating the local economies of small towns and rural communities throughout Wisconsin.”
The Root Of All Evil: The Original Jack O’ Lanterns Weren’t Pumpkins, They Were Turnips
“Jack-o’-lanterns originated in Ireland, ‘where people have been carving turnips and other root vegetables for centuries, to ward off evil spirits.’ Irish legend holds there was an actual man named Jack …”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.29.15
Maybe they should be interested, but …
I have to admit I’m a little surprised by the comments on my last post, which was about the way we in classical music grasp for relevance by programming concerts built around things in history — Shostakovich and Stalin, for instance — that not many people care much about. And thereby showing how not relevant we are. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-10-29
The chance and cost of being wrong
I’ve been reading a lot lately about data-informed decision making…more than is likely healthy for me. And so much of what I read begins and ends with the assumption that more data is always better. … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2015-10-29
Seeking a Blue Ocean
Once you have freed yourself from being chained to a place, and granted yourself permission to see what you want to do as not only important to you but also important to others as well, … read mor
AJBlog: Creative Insubordination Published 2015-10-29
The Real Vladimir Horowitz
Sony’s new 50-CD compilation, “Vladimir Horowitz: The Unreleased Live Recordings 1966-1983,” is a startling exercise in candor three times over. … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered Question Published 2015-10-29
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Is Poetry A Better Password?
Turning random strings of characters into rhymed, metered verse was the brainchild of Kevin Knight, a senior research scientist at USC’s Information Sciences Institute and a professor in their Computer Science Department, and Marjan Ghazvininejad, a Ph.D. student at the institute.
Can You Have Astonishing Creativity Without Competition?
“Think of rivalry as a type of über competition driven by mutual obsession, with the rivals propelling each other to spiralling achievement, and investing more mental and emotional resources in each other than circumstances would ever dictate on their own.”
Obama: I Learned About Complexity From Reading Novels
“When I think about how I understand my role as citizen, setting aside being president, and the most important set of understandings that I bring to that position of citizen, the most important stuff I’ve learned I think I’ve learned from novels”.
Romance Writer Accused Of Plagiarizing
“Her book was almost a word-for-word, scene-for-scene duplication of my book, except the characters’ names had been changed, and short M/M love scenes had been inserted. The only scene she didn’t include was the epilogue, which couldn’t be altered to an M/M scene. It involved the heroine in labour and the hero having sympathetic labour pains.”
Who Owns “Star Wars”? George Lucas Or The Fans?
Love or hate it — or love it and hate it, as legions of its fans do — the “Star Wars” series is a force to reckon with, less because of Mr. Lucas than the fans who elevated it to cinema’s alpha and omega.
Demand-Pricing Ticketing Software Dramatically Boosts Ticket Revenue
“Inspired by airline and travel booking websites, the centre began using the Neo-Ticketing system in October 2015, testing a number of different algorithms that automatically adjust ticket prices according to time or demand.”
Why Science Is Actually A Difficult Set Of Ideas
“The capacity for self-correction is the source of science’s immense strength, but the public is unnerved by the fact that scientific wisdom isn’t immutable. Scientific knowledge changes with great speed and frequency – as it should – yet public opinion drags with reluctance to be modified once established.”
Out Of Ideas? What Exactly Is An Ideas Festival?
The idea of an “Ideas Festival” is so broad that it could mean almost anything and thus, to most people, means absolutely nothing. Will they be celebrating new ideas? Old ideas? Is the festival strictly academic? Policy-oriented? Does it strive to make “ideas” culturally relevant? Will there be award statuettes shaped like light bulbs? And so on.
Bruce Coppock Retires From Leading St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Successors Appointed
Coppock, 64, led the orchestra from 1999 to 2008 and retired after being diagnosed with bile duct cancer. He survived the rare and usually fatal condition and returned to the SPCO in 2013, as the orchestra was emerging from a bitter contract dispute that led to a 191-day lockout of the musicians.
Lucerne Festival 2016 To Feature 11 Female Conductors
“Emmanuelle Haïm will conduct the Vienna Philharmonic, which, more than any other top orchestra, has been criticized for its slow pace of adding women to its ranks. Marin Alsop will make her debut in Lucerne conducting the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, and Barbara Hannigan will conduct the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Susanna Mälkki will conduct a new work by Olga Neuwirth, the festival’s composer in residence.”
This Week In Misguided Schools Censoring Books: ‘Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close’
“Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel … was suddenly pulled from the honors English curriculum at Illinois’s Mattoon High School because of ‘several passages that were ‘extremely’ vulgar detailing sexual acts’.”
Ai Weiwei’s True Medium Isn’t Legos, It’s Twitter And Instagram
“On Twitter, he puckishly retweets affirmations and condemnations alike, apparently more interested in sustaining debate than in simply winning the day. At such moments he seems less like a source of controversy than its stage manager.”
At Last, We May Be Close To Deciphering The Writing Of The Ancient Indus Valley
That civilization’s main cities “boasted street planning and house drainage worthy of the twentieth century. They hosted the world’s first known toilets, along with complex stone weights, elaborately drilled gemstone necklaces and exquisitely carved seal stones featuring one of the world’s stubbornly undeciphered scripts. … Now – as a result of increased collaboration between archaeologists, linguists and experts in the digital humanities – it looks possible that the Indus script may yield some of its secrets.”
Handwritten Draft Of King James Bible Discovered
“The King James Bible may well be the greatest work of literature ever written by committee – and now we know a bit more about the collaboration that produced it.”
Stop Expecting Artists To Work For Free – Or Worse, For ‘Exposure’
“The debate over working for free goes back a while now. But there are still people who haven’t heard the argument and think that ‘exposure’ of creative work is reason enough for people to give away their labors.”
Using Arts Education To Create Good Citizens And Thinkers: Remembering Black Mountain College
“Democracy is about making choices, and people need to take ownership of their choices. We don’t want to vote the way someone else tells us to. We want to vote based on beliefs we have chosen for ourselves. Making art is making choices. Art-making is practice democracy. Rice did not think of art-making as therapy or self-expression. He thought of it as mental training.”
What If You Made A Great Movie And Nobody Came? Why ‘Steve Jobs’ Bombed
“Danny Boyle and Aaron Sorkin’s exhilarating biopic-but-not-a-biopic of the late Apple co-founder sank like a stone in its first week of wide release after promising numbers in major markets and mostly rapturous reviews (ours included). What happened? The Internet, being the Internet, has some theories.”