Newspapers sold out across France when Camus’ book The Rebel was published – and Sartre’s newspaper trashed it. “The split between the two friends was a media sensation. … It’s hard to imagine an intellectual feud capturing that degree of public attention today, but, in this disagreement, many readers saw the political crises of the times reflected back at them. … If you are thoroughly committed to an idea, are you compelled to kill for it? What price for justice? What price for freedom?”
Archives for January 2017
Sure, It’s Nostalgic, But People Love Film For A Lot Of Other Reasons
A visit to new, state-of-the-art projection booths proves that film – unlike digital – has an ineffable quality that seems to capture the soul, or at least the devotion, of those who know anything about the subject.
Absurdist Theatre Serves The Resistance To Any Regime
After the fall of the Soviet Union and its satellite states, absurd theatre fell out of fashion. Then came 9/11. “Absurdism is about facing a world in which nothing seems to make sense. It is about accepting that deeply tragic events happen sometimes without much or any warning. It is about the realization that our understanding of the universe is limited and flawed. It is about the embracing the fact that our lives can be both terrifying and ridiculous, indeed the more terrifying, the more ridiculous. And it is about resistance.”
The Sudden Ban On Travelers From Iran Is Even Harming The Oscars (And Pissing Off The Academy)
The statement from The Academy is mild but firm: “As supporters of filmmakers — and the human rights of all people — around the globe, we find it extremely troubling that Asghar Farhadi, the director of the Oscar-winning film from Iran, ‘A Separation,’ along with the cast and crew of this year’s Oscar-nominated film ‘The Salesman,’ could be barred from entering the country because of their religion or country of origin.”
Barbara Hale, The Actress Who Played Perry Mason’s Secretary And Won An Emmy For It, Has Died At 94
Hale played Della Street over, and over, and over, and over again – and even helped revive the character in the 1980s. “She never seemed unhappy about being identified with one character throughout her career. In 1993 she told The Chicago Tribune that Della Street was ‘a woman who knew what everybody was thinking.'”
Actor John Hurt Dead At 77
David Lynch, who directed him in The Elephant Man, called him “simply the greatest actor in the world.” He made a thriving, and unusual, career in theatre, film, and television playing characters from Quentin Crisp to Caligula to Raskolnikov to Winston Smith to (for Mel Brooks) Jesus.
Today’s AJBlog Highlights 01.27.17
eighth blackbird
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2017-01-27
My new play
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2017-01-27
How Would You Sell An Artwork That’s Built Into The Ground?
“The original earthworks were never meant to be sold like paintings or statues. That was partly in keeping with the hippie, yippie tenor of the times. They have never come up for auction, although one sculpture fetched as high as $4 million in 2008. How would you even sell an earthwork?”
Critical Consensus: Here’s The Best Movie At This Year’s Sundance Festival
“It’s easy to caricature the festival — earnest docs, white-people-problem ensemble dramedies and the like — yet Sundance often proves itself capable not just of launching interesting careers, but also of nudging the needle forward when it comes to onscreen diversity and representation.”
LA’s Hammer Museum To Build A Major Expansion
“This transformation will provide 60 percent more exhibition space including collection galleries and a works on paper gallery to highlight our growing collection of photographs and drawings,” Ann Philbin, the Hammer’s director, said in a statement.
Why Isn’t The White House Petition To Save The NEA Collecting Signatures?
“The petition, entitled ‘Preserve the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities’ has received hundreds of tweets from proud signees but the official count (at the time of writing) reads: ’27 signed’.”
NY Times Pares Back Its Bestseller Lists And Comics People Aren’t Happy
“The Times abruptly announced that it’s gutting its best-seller lists, doing away with a host of existing lists in both the print and online editions of the paper as of February 5. Among the casualties are the Graphic Hardcover, Graphic Paperback, and Manga categories. The comics world is, understandably, quite unhappy with the development.”
This Year’s Oscar Nominations Owe Much To The Theatre
“The sheer reach of film when compared with theatre is certainly the reason why when the two appear to together in a story, it is Hollywood that secures the dominant position over Broadway or the West End. But on Oscar night, when big-budget glamour is all the rage (even for intimate and independently made films), theatre can hold its head high knowing that Academy Award glory owes a debt to the stage, directly or indirectly, even if we have to remind people that this the case.”
How Darwin’s Book Changed The World
“If evolution (a word Darwin used sparingly in the book) occurs randomly, without the intervention of divine will and protection—natural selection, after all—then change itself can occur not just for the better, but for the worse. The world, so wonderfully capable of evolution, is just as capable of the opposite. It was a troubling idea; it was also, potentially, a liberating one.”
Ghoulish Art On The Side Of A Brussels Building Has Residents Asking How Far Is Too Far
“The two murals that appeared last weekend have made their anonymous artist the talk of the European capital, posing a familiar question about art expressly created to provoke: how far can it go before the outrage becomes unacceptable?”
Comcast Defies Cable Industry Trend And Adds Customers
“The Philadelphia cable giant achieved a milestone in a sea of industry turbulence, adding a net 80,000 cable TV subscribers in the fourth quarter and 161,000 for the full year — defying the trend of customer cord-cutting that has concerned Wall Street. Comcast now has nearly 23 million cable TV subscribers, gaining on rival AT&T.”
New York’s Famous Half-Price Ticket Booth Finally Has An Indoor Location
Last summer, the Theatre Development Fund – hoping to add more New Yorkers to its largely tourist customer base – tried a pop-up of its TKTS booth at the location where Lincoln Center sells its own discounted day-of tickets. That arrangement has now been made permanent.
Is Book Collecting Anti-Social?
“One of the concerns in the early 19th century regarding book collecting was the fear that by hoarding books, buyers were denying their fellow countrymen their patrimony. The image of the rich dilettante was one of the conspicuous consumer of books that would never be read – the old TBR pile – therefore keeping books out of an intellectual commons. The collector was often portrayed as having a kind of antisocial disease that kept him from contributing to the greater good by sharing his printed riches.”
The Great Alan Sokal/Social Text Hoax: An Oral History, 20 Years On
Now that we’re in the “post-fact” era, here’s the story of the paper “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,” how it got past peer review and into an academic journal, and how Sokal revealed his caper: “Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the window of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.)”
List Of Finalists To Lead The Musee d’Orsay
“Michel Draguet, the director-general of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, and Laurence des Cars, the director of Paris’s Musée de l’Orangerie, are among the four candidates shortlisted for the post of director of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. The successful applicant will replace Guy Cogeval who has led the museum since 2008.”
Quit Making Fun Of Academic Jargon – In The Age Of Trump, We Need It More Than Ever (Says Former Academic)
Rebecca Schuman (who, evidently, is still bitter over the Alan Sokal/Social Text incident), writes, “But now that we’ve just watched a sociopath with a fifth-grade vocabulary take the oath of office, … I have no choice but to come to jargon’s defense. Don’t worry: I’ll do it using small words.” (The commenters, however, are not having it.)
Remember Lillian Hellman? She Was A Genuinely Important American Playwright, And It’s Time We Remembered That
For decades she’s been thought of less as a dramatist than as a steely literary figure (thanks to her own efforts) or an inveterate liar (thanks to Mary McCarthy’s). DC’s Arena Stage is spending this season trying to change that.
Rehearse, Ice Feet, Repeat: A Week In The Life Of A New York City Ballet Corps Dancer
“With apologies to James Brown, the hardest working people in show business may well be ballet dancers. And at New York City Ballet, none work harder than the dancers in its lowest rank, the corps de ballet.” Michael Cooper spent six days shadowing one corps member, and he found even that “exhausting.” (includes video)
How Mel Gibson Went From Pariah To Oscar Nominee
“How did liberal Hollywood decide to once again embrace Gibson a few short years after leaked audiotapes and a domestic-violence accusation painted a picture of a him as an unhinged, abusive racist?” It’s not just that his movies are still making money, Kevin Lincoln reports – a lot of people there genuinely like the guy and say those tapes give an inaccurate picture.
Everybody’s Favorite Installation At LACMA Will Stay There Permanently
“Random International’s Rain Room, the large-scale, interactive installation in which visitors experience an artificial downpour but never get wet, has been acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.”