According to PBS chief Paula Kerger, ““PBS itself will not go away, but a number of our stations will. … There isn’t a plan B for that.”
Archives for July 2017
Artists May Be Wresting Back Some Control From Galleries
Mark Grotjahn is the leader and the exemplar of an artist who controls his prices, partly because he has non-exclusive deals with four galleries.
This Essay Will Make You Question Everything About ‘Wonder Woman’
Why are critics so moved by this film? Really, why? “Like so many recent girl-power extravaganzas that seek to celebrate what a long way we’ve come, baby, it ends up illustrating precisely the opposite.”
The NYT’s Chief Classical Critic Is Not OK With The President’s Invocation Of Symphonies
Words you might not have expected from Anthony Tommasini: “‘Eleanor Rigby,’ I’d argue, is just as profound as Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony.”
Composer Gilles Tremblay, Whose Music And Teaching Shaped Contemporary Music In Quebec, Has Died At 85
“Tremblay had students discover a universe where history wasn’t presented as a series of ruptures (between different musical eras), but instead presented as a continuous search for a personal and lively expression of music.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs For The Weekend Of 07.30.17
Brubeck And Desmond: Can’t You Hear Them Calling?
I am running soon for a plane headed to Sweden. But first: I must tell you about a discovery by blogger, Rifftides reader and tune-detective-first-class Tarik Townsend. Mr. Townsend (pictured) writes that … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2017-07-28
The Jazz & Blues Art Box — instant collection, rare data trove
Two hundred and thirty dvds of concerts and 96 interviews from the International Jazzfestival Bern (Switzerland), 1983 to 2002, 20 yearbooks plus a 344-page large format graphics-rich volume, in a cabinet on wheels standing almost 4 … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond JazzPublished 2017-07-28
Jonathan Lethem and Rock Criticism
SINCE I was a teenager, I’ve been fascinated by the lions of music journalism and rock criticism — Greil Marcus, Robert Christgau, Ellen Willis, and others, especially from the field’s 1970s heyday. The novelist … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrashPublished 2017-07-28
Tackling an inequitable arts funding system: A response to the report, Not Just Money
Helicon Collaborative, with a grant from the Surdna Foundation, has recently published a second report, Not Just Money, examining where US arts philanthropic dollars go. Some may recall that when the first report was published … read more
AJBlog: JumperPublished 2017-07-28
Can You Guess Who’s A Racist Based On Their Intelligence?
Turns out that people who are more intelligent, at least in pattern recognition, may be more likely to stereotype. On the other hand, they’re also more likely to be able to counter those stereotypes with new information. In short, it’s complicated.
This Is How You Make Sure Kids Get Books, And Get Fed, In The Summer
Simple, right? Kids who get free lunches in the school year often don’t eat in the summers. So a bunch of libraries are trying to fix that problem. “Librarians used to forbid any food or drink to avoid staining books and attracting pests. People who tried to sneak snacks in the stacks would be reprimanded. But in recent years, a growing number of libraries have had a major shift in policy: They are the ones putting food on the table.”
The Music Business Simply Has To Get On Board With Gender Equality
Indeed: “Why hasn’t the digital revolution, which has transformed the music industry, extended to creating a 21st-century working culture, which allows for equal opportunities for all? Why isn’t this creative industry leading the way in creating diverse teams of people who will think differently, challenge the status quo and create a vibrant and dynamic business? Why does today’s music industry remain pretty much run by the same coterie as it was back in the days of Elvis?”
Apple Removes Apps That Help Chinese Users Avoid Censorship
“‘We are troubled to see Apple aiding China’s censorship efforts,’ ExpressVPN said in a statement.”
When Glimmerglass Goes To Attica
Francesca Zambello, the general director of Glimmerglass, described the story of Porgy and Bess, “recounting the twists and turns of a work about love, loss, race, murder, drug use, imprisonment, perseverance and hope. When she set the scene for one aria by saying that ‘a crap game starts,’ a murmur of recognition rippled through the audience. When she said that Crown, the opera’s villain, ‘murders someone impulsively,’ an inmate exclaimed: ‘Oh, man!'”
Once Again, A Canadian Panel Finds That An Annie Leibovitz Collection Is Not Fully ‘Significant’
The decision has major tax implications for the donor that donated the collection to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in 2013. “‘We disagree with the decision,’ the museum said in a statement. ‘We consider Annie Leibovitz to be one of the most influential photographers of her time and feel the collection is culturally significant — to our province, our country and internationally.'”
Is Life A Quirk Of Biology … Or Physics?
Give a bunch of atoms more and more energy, and they’ll create a planet where a bipedal mammal with a certain size of brain will hunt other large animals into extinction or near-extinction, but also make art. That is to say, at least sometimes, a chemical soup can evolve into something more.
When Musicians Dance And Play
An interesting trend accelerates: “The challenge to classical presenters is to find ways to widen the sensory experience of a concert without losing depth or quality of sound — a concern that takes on novel forms when cellists or clarinetists are asked to play while lying on their backs.”
Artistic Director Beaten Almost To Death In Dallas Says He Survived Partly Because Of ‘Pippin’
Derek Whitener, whose brain was damaged in the savage January beating in the parking lot of a Dallas Target, couldn’t move or speak or recognize anyone. But, he says, his brain was busy thinking about how to direct certain parts of Pippen, which opened last week. “As he struggled to heal enough to leave the hospital, he thought about Pippin’s troubled journey as he searches for meaning and purpose.”
We Love Sequels So Much Even Documentaries Are Getting Them
And the sequels inevitably lend themselves to newspaper leads like this: “It could be one of this summer’s hottest sequels: In a world threatened by powerful unseen forces, one man goes on a desperate mission to save the planet. Only the star is former Vice President Al Gore.”
Why, Why, WHY Are You Talking (And Eating) At The Theatre?
So this stream of Angels in America went well. For someone. “There is nothing like the silence of a highly dramatic moment—such as when a young man, seriously ill with AIDS, finds a point of contact with his ex-lover’s lover’s Mormon mother — punctuated by a man burping and gurgling, and sounding as if he is going to gag.”
Mike Leigh Is Making A Historical Film, And For Once, Everyone Knows About His Plans
That might be because Amazon is financing the film – which gives Leigh far more money than he usually has while secretively filming things like Happy Go Lucky or Mr. Turner. The film is about the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, “the infamous killing of an estimated 18 protesters, and the wounding of about 700 others in St Peter’s Field in Manchester on 16 August,” which “became known as Peterloo, in a bleak reference to the battle of Waterloo four years previously.”
Photo Editor John Morris, Who Created Our Images Of WWII And Vietnam, Has Died At 100
Morris, who edited Robert Capo’s D-Day pictures and got them to Life in time for its first post-D-Day issue, was photo editor of The New York Times for six years during the Vietnam War. “He successfully argued for front-page display of Eddie Adams’s photograph of a Saigon police chief shooting a suspected Vietcong insurgent in the head. It appeared as the lead picture on Feb. 2, 1968, and became one of the most indelible images to emerge from the war.”
Poet Ocean Vuong On Translation, Success, And Optimism In This Moment
Vuong says that it’s far more common to be from a poor background than a middle-class one, but the literary world doesn’t seem to know it. “The fact of the matter is that displacement, immigration and war are some of the most common factors of human history, so I always insist with a little mischievousness that I’m writing something very normal, very common. In fact, perhaps the middle class story is the exotic.”
The Film Made From Long-Lost Canadian Yukon Stories
There’s a wild story about how this was buried for decades, and also about “the route the footage took from building site to the Canadian national archives in Ottawa – transported by a Hercules military aircraft after civilian courier firms refused to deliver what they considered dangerously flammable material.”
The Story Of A Songwriter Who Kept Some Songs For Herself
Julia Michaels, who has written hit songs for Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, and Selena Gomez, says it was time for her to sing one of her own songs. “Shelly Peiken, who’s a really incredible songwriter, used to say ‘dare to suck.’ You never know what people’s reactions are going to be, so you’ve got to take chances.”
The Woman Bringing A Bookstore Back To The Bronx
Noelle Santos, who’s been crowdfunding for the store-to-be: “We need a physical space like a bookstore, whether it be independent or a chain store. It serves this physiological purpose that Amazon cannot reproduce. Amazon is not a bookstore. They are an algorithm, and that’s all.”
What It Was Like To Take Photos That Went Viral (Before Viral Was A Thing)
Photographer Graciela Iturbide: “It’s very strange, no? That image is no longer mine. In Juchitán there is now a sculpture of her based on that photo. It has appeared as graffiti. There are murals. In Juchitán, she is like a saint. ‘Our Lady of the Iguanas’ is part of daily life.”
To Avoid Stepping Into The Shoes Of A Former ‘Hamilton’ Actor, Mandy Patinkin Steps Down From ‘Great Comet’
Will the move, which Patinkin said he made because he agreed that the choice was one that wasn’t good for actors of color, cause yet more ticket sales problems for “Great Comet,” which has struggled since musician Josh Groban stepped down?