Yearly Archives: 2021
Attempts To Fix A Mies van der Rohe Masterpiece – A Disaster As A...
As a museum, it has always been a disaster. Ever since it opened, the New National Gallery has been dogged by cracking windows, heavy...
A Genre Of Books Promises To make You Smarter. True?
Most of the time, thinking sounds like hard work, but add “smart” to the front and it sounds more attractive: hipsterishly mid-Atlantic, vaguely technological...
The Thriving Book Community On TikTok
BookTok is a hashtag on TikTok, where readers post videos of book recommendations, talk about writing novels and make reading-related jokes. The hashtag...
The Societal Benefits Of Public Nudity
According to a series of surveys conducted by researchers at the University of London, not only did those who engaged in naturism have higher...
Rite Of Passage: Now There Are Academic Citations For TikTok
The iconic MLA Handbook has added an entry for TikTok, so Noam Chomsky 2.0s, who need to cite videos from the social media powerhouse,...
Why We Need Poetry Right Now
Indeed, in our age of social media, words are often used as weapons. Poetry instead treats words with care. - The New York Times
Why Artists Need Mentors
Many times when teaching, (especially dance criticism or dance history) I find that many people do not know important and influential dancers, teachers or...
Is There Too Much Music?
he source of discovery is the last 70 years of music. It's all brand new, right now. So you're competing with every song that...
The End Of Fans?
At this tumultuous moment, I think we each have to decide for ourselves which pieces of art to keep, and which to throw out....
How To Nurture A Classical Music Community During A Pandemic
For violinist Jennifer Koh, the answer crystallized early in 2020: Hire composers, and get on Instagram. - NPR
Nobody Makes Superheroes Like Australia
DC and Marvel got you bored? Hunt down Captain Invincible, Griff the Invisible, or, even better, the TV series Cleverman, told from an Indigenous...
What A Classical Retelling Means To Its Writer, And Its Audience
Madeline Miller's 2011 book The Song of Achilles has, she says, helped readers come out to their parents; has inspired people to earn Ph.D.s...
Jeopardy’s Next Big Headache
What kind of vetting do they have over there at Sony, anyway? - Washington Post
Here Are The Fall’s Award-Bait Films
In theory, four fall film festivals are about to take place, with masked, vaccinated, and tested participants. "Yes, the last Oscars were just four...
Donald Newlove, 93, Author Who Explored The Depths Of Drink
Newlove wrote hundreds of articles, essays, and stories; novels; and several books of advice for writers as well. Once sober, he called his former...
Using Artists – And Art – To Revive A Town In Cornwall
There's a revival in the town of St. Austell, thanks to the history of clay. - The Guardian (UK)
The Outdoor Concerts In Ireland Where Musicians Arrive By Canal And Barge
Sounds gloriously picturesque: "There’s a tall lamp standing on the stone quayside at a lock in rural Co Carlow on a warm and clear...
Let’s Talk About Luma Arles
The art park (project? bioregion?) in France is a bit unclear right now. Luma "is a wonderland of good intentions. They certainly don’t pave...
Is Seeing Live Theatre Worth All Of The COVID Precautions And Stress?
Charles McNulty, in Los Angeles, says yes, but: "Anticipating the stress of the new COVID-19 protocols, I forgot the old stresses, the lunatic driving...
Micki Grant, Composer And Trailblazer, 92
Grant was the first in so many categories. First woman to write the book, lyrics, and music to a Broadway musical. One of the...
Good Thing It Wasn’t Banksy
Or was the graffiti artist after whom the NY Police Department sent a drone, a helicopter, and several cars actually the next potential Banksy...
The Opera Tenor Who Likes To Take His Audience To The Edge
Australian tenor Stuart Skelton on Wagner: "Singers are like athletes doing long-distance competitions. You get to the point where you’ve reached your physical limits....
When The NYT Book Review Minced Few Words
You might call the headlines "brutally honest," if you were being kind. "Novel or Nightmare?" one asks. "Two Pathetic Books," one proclaims. - The...
Artificial Intelligence Can Kind Of Produce New Yorker Cartoons, But Those Captions
"Comics artist Ilan Manouach and AI engineer Ioannis Siglidis developed the Neural Yorker, an artificial intelligence (AI) engine that posts computer-generated cartoons on Twitter." The results...
Ed Asner, Emmy Award Winning Actor And Political Activist, 91
Asner won played Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show; his career continued into the 2000s, including Up and Elf, and even the...
