“I don’t take life for granted, and I don’t know if I will be alive in five years. As far as I know, no composer wrote on their score, ‘Forbidden to those under age 18.'”
Cancelled Sarasota Dance Festival Is Un-Cancelled
“Less than a month after the 2014 Carreño Dance Festival was cancelled, the Sarasota summer intensive workshop for pre-professionals dancers is back – and with a new face and partnership that sent a wave of shock through local dance circles.”
There’s an Underground at the MLA – And It Aims to Transform Academia
“The result: the ‘MLA Subconference,’ organized with the chief aim of confronting loudly and bluntly, the very real problems crippling higher education today, from the adjunct labor crisis to ballooning student tuition. The subconference ‘shadows’ MLA by being held in the same city, one day before the established convention begins.”
UCLA Has Destroyed The Undergraduate Study Of English and Wounded Civilization
Conservative pundit Heather Mac Donald: “Until 2011, students majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton – the cornerstones of English literature.” But no more. “What happened at UCLA is part of a momentous shift that bears on our relationship to the past – and to civilization itself.”
Can A Gallery Devoted To Low-Cost Art Make It In The Big City? Not This One
“It was always an ambitious mission to get a new group of people to think of themselves as art collectors and get them to spend their money on emerging artists. I think it worked great when we did periodic events, but because of our commitment to lower prices, it was hard to make ends meet when we had to pay rent every month.”
Syrian Refugees Play Euripides’s Trojan Women
Classicist Charlotte Eagar writes about her project, with her husband and a Syrian director, to stage the antiwar Greek tragedy in Arabic translation with a cast of women who have fled their homeland’s vicious civil war for neighboring Jordan.
Art Is The Antidote To ‘Stuffocation’
Peter Aspden: “There are few more powerful forms of revolt against stuffocation” – the feeling of being stifled by having too many things – “than to submit to an artistic experience.”
The Problem With Crowd-Funded Movies
“When the people who have paid for the film are also your audience, you lose the latitude to innovate and surprise. Two roles that used to be distinct – investor and consumer – are now one, and as such the way the filmmakers can work is altered and limited, if they are to avoid a fan backlash and get funded a second time.”
Will Its Sound Make ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ An Academy Fave?
“There are 240 members in the Academy’s music branch, which includes Mr. Burnett, and if those members come to view ‘Llewyn Davis’ as a tribute to the enduring power of their own craft, the film will be well on its way.”
Why The Hell Do We Read Jane Eyre When It’s Not That Great?
That is, not that great compared to Charlotte Brontë’s last book, Villette. “It is high time it was recognised as the blazing work it is.”
Google Scholar Is Totally Not Going To Be Killed By Google
“Product updates were few and far between. Given that Google can hire lots of people to do just about anything, the steady-state of Scholar gave me the idea that perhaps Google was going to sunset the service.”
The Box Office Says Strong Women Make Money At The Movies
“Featuring strong female characters in a film earned studios billions of extra dollars.” That’s billions with a b.
What Happened To This Woman After She Got An Oscar Nomination?
Juanita Moore, who died Dec. 31 at age 99, “fell through the cracks of a Hollywood system with little to offer a black actress besides small parts as maids and nannies.”
What’s The Deal With The Power Of Three?
“In ads, stump speeches and other messages understood to have manipulative intent, three claims will persuade, but four (or more) will trigger skepticism, and reverse an initially positive impression.”
Phil Everly Of The Everly Brothers, 74
“There is no more beautiful sound than the voices of siblings swirled together in high harmony, and when Phil and Don Everly combined their voices with songs about yearning, angst and loss, it changed the world.”
What’s The Deal With Powerhouse Choreographer Alexei Ratmansky?
“In 2013, he had no fewer than seven world premieres in five cities on three continents. It becomes increasingly evident that he is the most prolific choreographer alive, the most travel-hungry and the most historically conscious.”
Should Minneapolis Terminate The Lease For Orchestra Hall?
Minnesota Orchestra musicians have been locked out of Orchestra Hall for more than a year – but “under the terms of its lease, the [Minnesota Orchestral Association] is required to show how the facility is being used to promote the arts in Minneapolis.” Hm.
Star Trek Pioneered A Lot Of Things On TV, Including Sex With Aliens
These episodes of the original Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation “may have allowed viewers to reconsider knee-jerk and intolerant positions on sexual difference; as we see the pain caused by intolerance, we have a chance to rethink our positions.”
When Should You Take A Potty Break During The Movie?
There’s an app for that. (Yes, really.)
Will the Closing of “Spider-Man” Hurt Nearby Businesses?
“When Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark goes dark for good at the Foxwoods Theater [in Manhattan] on Saturday, just how much dimmer – and for how long – will the immediate neighborhood be?”