In the years they occupied Iraq’s second city, the extremists burned tens of thousands of books and torched the widely admired university’s library. NYRB‘s reporters meet with librarians, law professors, and a literature lover who has opened a library/café.
Archives for March 2018
UK Ruling On Hearing Damages Will Have Big Impact On Orchestras
“It effectively says an orchestral workspace is no different from a factory,” said Mark Pemberton, director of the Association of British Orchestras. “What it says is that musicians will need to be wearing their hearing protection at all times.”
How Brexit Will Damage UK Arts
When it comes to Brexit and the arts, freedom of movement and access to finance are the two most frequently discussed issues. They feature heavily in two reports from Arts Council England last month that provide the best data yet on what the sector is thinking and doing in response to the vote to leave.
Is There A Way To Scientifically Measure Wisdom?
To assess our health, we weigh ourselves, measure our blood pressure, and check our cholesterol. But one scientist is trying to figure out the connection between our well-being and something much more difficult to quantify: wisdom.
How Nashville Lost Its Soul To “Experience” Tourism
Nashville is cool now. Which is to say, there are parts of Nashville that serve and appeal to and are filled with members of the so-called creative class and promise a different “experience” than your day-to-day life. The draw wasn’t major attractions, like the Opry, but attending a quaint show at the Bluebird Café. Like Austin or Portland, the draw to Nashville isn’t to go and be a tourist, but to go and spend a weekend sort of pretending that you live there — and, who knows, maybe one day make it a reality, and bring your friends and business along with you.
Reboot Of “Roseanne” Show Draws Unexpectedly Massive TV Audience
While nostalgia was expected to bring in eyeballs, no one predicted such a huge turnout on premiere night for the blue-collar family sitcom with a Donald Trump-supporting protagonist, especially among the younger demographic. But then, few predicted that Trump would become the Republican nominee and would win the presidential election when he first announced his candidacy.
Meet A Man Who’s Been Handling Priceless Art (And Not Just Paintings) For 40 Years
“Ken Simons has had his hands on Picasso paintings, moved Tracey Emin’s bed and manoeuvred an Antony Gormley sculpture though a third-floor window. For him, a famous painting or sculpture isn’t just a precious creation to be admired – it’s a practical puzzle. Will it fit through the door? How can it be carried? Which trolley is best to wheel it through the gallery? And, in the case of some outlandish modern sculptures – how does it fit together?”
In Which Our Intrepid Musician Tests Out Promises He Can Learn Perfect Pitch
I order the set on Amazon, used, for over 100 euros. It comes with a pile of CDs and a “Handbook,” basically a thick CD booklet. One morning, I make myself comfortable next to my electronic keyboard and pop Masterclass 1 into the player. The masterclass begins by talking up the value of perfect pitch. Without it, “something is lacking,” the voice tells me. He says that listening to music without perfect pitch is like watching a movie on a black-and-white TV.
What’s The Hot New Source For TV Material? Podcasts
“A podcast offers up intellectual property in a particularly appealing format – compared with a book or even a script, it’s a stronger proof of concept of how a show or movie would actually play out. ‘It’s one step closer to seeing it onscreen,’ [Matt] Tarses said. ‘You already know what it sounds like.'” (Tarses is the creator of Alex, Inc., an ABC series about a podcaster, based on Alex Blumberg’s podcast about launching his podcasting company, Gimlet Media. How meta can you get?)
Why Is Programming At “America’s Best Orchestra” So Backward-Looking?
Much of what the orchestra does is, in fact, innovative. The orchestra is well on its way to having one of the youngest audiences in the U.S., if not the world. The orchestra’s adventurous opera productions consistently surpass those of full-time opera companies in terms of production and sheer music-making. Student subscriptions, generously subsidized by philanthropy, are more affordable than those for many other orchestras. And the orchestra maintains residencies at some of the world’s most revered halls, including the Musikverein in Vienna and Lincoln Center in New York. Yet the orchestra’s commitment to innovation stops, frustratingly and inexplicably, with its choice of repertoire.
Stockhausen’s Impossibly Massive Opera Cycle ‘LICHT’ Gets A Half-Size Version (Which Makes It Just-Barely-Possibly Massive)
The seven-day, 26-hour avant-garde behemoth requires not only vocal and instrumental soloists, choir, orchestra, ballet dancers, and electronics, but four helicopters as well. (Yes, the notorious “Helicopter Quartet” is from LICHT.) The Dutch, being practical folk, have now devised a smaller-scale adaptation: aus LICHT, which runs a mere 15 hours of music over three days. Reporter Simon Cummings finds out how they did it (and convinced the famously controlling Stockhausen Foundation to cooperate).
Islamabad’s Disappearing Bookshops Signal A Big Cultural Shift
When Islamabad was built as the capital of a newly independent Pakistan, it was the “old bookshops” that gave the neighbourhoods a spirit and character beyond the insipid soullessness that pervades purpose-built cities. Now their accelerating disappearance tells a story of the seismic political and commercial shifts that have taken place here over the past two decades.
The Antiquarian Book Dealer Who Became ‘France’s Bernie Madoff’
Gérard Lhéritier, the son and grandson of plumbers, built himself into the biggest, and flashiest, seller of old manuscripts and books in France, a businessman whose (heavily publicized) prize piece of inventory was the Marquis de Sade’s original manuscript of 120 Days of Sodom. (Naturally, Esquire uses that fact as the hook for this article.) Now Lhéritier, his assets seized, stands accused orchestrating France’s largest-ever Ponzi scheme, using a Wall Street-style device to bilk thousands of shareholders of more than $1 billion.
The Most Popular Exhibitions In The World This Year
The Art Newspaper compiles a list of shows by category. In top sport was Modern masterpieces from the Shchukin Collection—by Picasso, Matisse and Gauguin, among others—were seen by 1,205,000, a staggering 8,926 visitors a day in Paris.
The Egyptian Artist Who Was Really An Israeli Spying For Mossad
“In the early 1950s, a Mossad agent named Shlomo Cohen-Abravanel was sent to Egypt, under the cover-story that he was a French abstract painter named Charduval. Abravanel’s fake artist persona was so successful that he scored a small solo exhibition at Cairo’s Museum of Modern Art, while the actual Abravanel went on to design the Mossad’s official emblem.”
Houston Symphony Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada Named Chief Conductor Of Vienna Symphony
The 40-year-old Colombian-Austrian, who’s also chief conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, succeeds Philippe Jordan (who’s also music director of the Paris Opera) at the start of the 2020-21 season. (At that point, Jordan will cross the street to become music director of the Vienna State Opera.)
Think West End Ticket Prices Are Too High? Here’s Why They Cost So Much
“Every year London’s commercial theatres are accused of profiteering, as ticket prices rocket and the industry boasts of record-breaking revenues. But analysing the high costs involved, ticketing expert Richard Howle shows where your money goes – and why musicals remain a risky investment, often taking years to recoup.”
Here’s The African-American Museum That Charleston, And America, Need
Michael Kimmelman writes about the long-planned International African American Museum, to be located at the wharf on Charleston’s waterfront where close to half of all African slaves brought to the U.S. arrived.
More Commonwealth Authors Demand (Again) That Americans Be Kicked Out Of Man Booker Prize
“Three years since the Man Booker began allowing any author writing in English and published in the UK to enter, 99% of Folio Academy members who responded to the question have said that the Booker should change its rules again, with most responses citing the new ubiquity of US authors in the prize’s longlists.”
Lots Of Bad Public Art Has Made Macedonia’s Capital A Giant Monument To Kitsch
“Quick quiz. Which of the following makes sense?
a) Three pirate ships on a river in a landlocked country in the Balkans;
b) A 47-foot-high bronze statue of an ancient warrior that is Alexander the Great and is also not Alexander the Great; or
c) A house dedicated to Mother Teresa, a saint known for her modesty, done up in an opulent style that can best be described as Miami meets the Flintstones.
Answer: None, unless you are in Skopje, Macedonia.”
New Sculpture On Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth Is Rebuke To ISIS’s Destruction Of Ancient Sites
American artist Michael Rakowitz, whose family were Iraqi Jewish refugees, made a replica of the lamassu (a winged bull with a human head) which stood at the ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh until ISIS destroyed it in 2015. (The material: thousands of empty cans of date syrup, once a major Iraqi export.)
Why Misty Copeland Is Embracing The ‘Misty Copeland Swan Lake Fouetté Fail’ Video
“[The video is of] Copeland performing [the] Swan Queen last week in Singapore, where she wasn’t able to finish her 32 fouettés (she was criticized for doing the same thing when she debuted the role in 2015). … Why would ballet’s biggest star want to promote a video of herself messing up, and a tweet saying that she doesn’t deserve to be in American Ballet Theatre? Because she’s bravely proving some important points.”
Metro Chicago’s Elgin Symphony May Run Out Of Money Before This Season’s Last Concert
“Because of a financial shortfall, the Symphony Orchestra’s board of directors have scheduled a special meeting late Thursday afternoon to see if the group will be able to find a way to afford putting on the final concerts of its season May 5-6.”
John Neumeier, Now 79, Will Remain At Helm Of Hamburg Ballet For Four More Years
The city of Hamburg extended has extended the choreographer’s contract for four more years, to 2023. He is already the world’s longest-serving ballet company head, and at the end of this contract extension he’ll have been with Hamburg Ballet for a half-century. (in German; Google Translate version here)
This Film Won Six South African Academy Awards, And Black Traditionalists Are Trying To Get It Classified As Porn
Inxeba (The Wound), about a gay love triangle taking place amidst Xhosa male coming-of-age rites, took directing, acting, writing, and editing honors as well as Best Film at the South African Film and Television Awards this week. Yet traditional leaders have furiously opposed the movie, arguing that it is hard-core pornography that profanes a sacred part of their culture. (No genitalia are shown on screen.)