"It is a feeling of being in a minefield where some things are permitted and some not, but you don’t know which, or that certain lines are ‘meant to be funny’, but you don’t find them so – that Shakespeare’s intentions are in some mysterious sense to be honoured, even though no one truly knows what they were." -...
At 85, he retains, as Daphne Merkin once wrote in The New York Times, a louche glamour, “like a lounge lizard who reads Flaubert.” The house Stoppard shares with his third wife, the charming Sabrina Guinness, is exactly what you would expect: elegant, erudite, fey and library-quiet. - The New York Times
"I’ve tried to play Mozart well for 60 years now. When I started I had little clue. How fast should it go? (There are no metronome marks as in Beethoven.) What kind of sound? What note lengths were implied by the various editions? But by 1970, luckily for my generation, help was at hand." - The Guardian
Hernandez, who currently serves as the senior vice president of Film at Lincoln Center, the executive director of the New York Film Festival and the publisher of Film Comment, will join the Sundance Institute’s leadership team in November, upon conclusion of the New York festival. - The New York Times
"One of the most celebrated writers of tales of horror, psychological thrillers and stories, ... he was the winner of numerous prizes, including the Bram Stoker Award for lifetime achievement in 2006, and was named an International Horror Guild 'living legend' in 2008." - MSN (The Washington Post)
An avant-garde likes to present itself as insurgent and radical, yet the logic of the metaphor suggests that a new group will soon be coming along to replace it. Today’s avant-garde is always liable to congeal into tomorrow’s orthodoxy. - The Nation
Cineworld, which owns Regal Cinemas in the US and Cineworld and Picturehouse theatres in the UK, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in US federal court in Houston. The company will continue operations and expects to be reorganized by early next year. - AP
It is not just in war and sport that luck plays such a great part. In our interconnected global economy, every business operates in a high-variable environment. This is not new. - Psyche
"(He) was the cable news channel's lead anchor for two decades until his retirement in 2001. During his tenure, Shaw anchored major breaking news events, like the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981, the Tiananmen Square student revolt in 1989 and every presidential election." - The Hollywood Reporter
As Goethe later recalled in his autobiography, it was to the house that he owed his literary awakening. It was there, gazing at his family’s prints, that he had learned to love Italy, antiquity and nature; there that his passion for drama was first fired; and there that he wrote some of his most famous works. - History Today
Hobart Earle, who's currently helming the orchestra on a special visit to Berlin: "I never imagined that I would be a long-term music director. And I certainly never planned on being a music director in a time of war." - The New York Times
In announcing this shift, prize founder Scott Griffin said that Canadian poets are capable of competing on the world stage. “Yes, Canadians will not have this automatic prize each year. But in a sense, there is a statement here that’s saying Canadians can hold their own.” - The Globe & Mail (Canada)
"High-level (layoffs) are unusual for any established magazine, and they are unprecedented for National Geographic, which has enjoyed stable editorial leadership since its founding by the nonprofit National Geographic Society of Washington in 1888." - MSN (The Washington Post)
"After a decades-long, controversy-filled history of desperately wanting to play Fanny Brice, Lea Michele was finally in the role on Broadway. At the first performance, the audience was there to cheer on the greatest star, though you could put any part of that fervent sentiment in air quotes." - Vulture
Located on Benjamin Franklin Parkway just opposite the Rodin Museum and Barnes Foundation, Calder Gardens will include both a building (designed by Herzog & de Meuron) and landscaped outdoor spaces to display a rotating selection of Calder's mobiles and stabiles. - The Philadelphia Inquirer
