“Slippery plots become clearer after a second viewing, but some movies – such as Inherent Vice – are meant to be confusing. And if critics go back for more, are they being fair to readers, who only get one shot?”
The Problem With Public Discourse On The Internet Is Not Political Correctness
It is, argues Michael Lind, the likes of The Incredible Hulk and Mrpoophispants (who is like Hitler).
Keeping Music Alive
“Making sure our music survives is about a lot more than just writing it down. It has to do with teaching our harmonic language and melodic style to those who learn from us. It has to do with nuance, experience, storytelling, and subtlety.”
Can An Australian Director Take Washington, D.C.’s Hirshhorn Global?
Melissa Chiu: “Building on the Hirshhorn’s international presence doesn’t preclude us from having a vital engagement with our more immediate community. I’m very aware that we can create energy around our programming only from building a loyalty and interest in the museum.”
The Cello From 1694
“It’s from Cremona, the period and the place of the golden age of instrument making. Everything was right about the instrument, the arching, the varnish. It was in, for a cello of that age, impeccable condition. … [But] this cello took quite a while to sort of come into its own soundwise.”
Report: Watching TV With Subtitles Is A Bad Experience
User feedback said live subtitles made viewing “frustrating, and, on occasion, unwatchable.” The report highlighted “serious recognition errors” in subtitling software, which led to mistakes such as the phrase “be given to our toddlers” translated as “be given to ayatollahs”.
Why Debates About Today’s Big Issues Have So Little Historical Context
“In contrast to earlier centuries, when the historian’s craft had been the preserve of amateurs such as Gibbon and Macaulay, the 20th century was the era when history professionals emerged – men and women who earned their living from teaching and writing history as employees of universities. Like other professionals, they sought advancement by becoming unquestioned masters of a small terrain, fenced off by their command of specialist archives. The explosion since the 1970s of new subdisciplines – including social history, women’s history and cultural history – encouraged further balkanisation of the subject. Academic historians seemed to be saying more and more about less and less. In consequence, the big debates of our day lack the benefit of historical perspective.”
The Psychology Of Wearing Glasses
When constant-use glasses were first introduced at the start of the 18th century—before, eye assistance was relegated to occasional-use monocles and, presumably, power-squinting—spectacle wearers were mysterious folk. “What were these secret weapons they had on their face? What is this person doing with this device on? Are they trying to capture my soul or something?”
Think Theatre Isn’t Evolving Fast Enough? Nicholas Hytner Begs To Disagree
“I think this new crowd have found ways of producing, ways of finding spaces and turning them into theatres that is unprecedented. They’ve got lots of things to say, they say it in all sorts of different ways, and they find all sorts of ways of saying it.”
Awkward Fit: The Choreographer Who Would Be Genius
“The ballet world, desperate for an heir to Balanchine and Robbins, tends to deify bright young men, and as it tries to puff Justin Peck up, he seems determined to stay firmly on the ground, so to speak.”
Where Critics Have Failed The Art Of Movies
“Independent filmmaking is wilder and freer than ever, owing in part to the readier availability of equipment and in part to the mere march of time and proliferation of ideas. But, at the same time, Hollywood filmmaking is even more brazenly commercial. The gap between the independents and the profit centers is increasing along with the quality of independent films.”
Rod McKuen, 81, Poet And Songwriter
“[He was] the husky-voiced ‘King of Kitsch’ whose avalanche of music, verse and spoken-word recordings in the 1960s and ’70s overwhelmed critical mockery and made him an Oscar-nominated songwriter and one of the best-selling poets in history.”
The Most Powerful Artwork I Have Ever Seen (By Jerry Saltz)
“I don’t want to sound like an insane art-critic version of Werner Herzog rhapsodizing about ‘albino alligators.’ All I know is that something seismic hit me …, some capacious cognizance, cryptic, wakeful.”
Fighting Back Against “Wolf Hall”‘s Slander Of Thomas More (With Help From Holbein)
Jonathan Jones: “Why does Wolf Hall demonise one of the most brilliant and forward-looking of all Renaissance people? Its caricature of Thomas More as a charmless prig, a humourless alienating nasty piece of work, is incredibly unfair. You only have to consider one of Hans Holbein’s greatest works to see this.”
Mental Health Issues Affect 20% Of Theatre Professionals, Survey Finds
“The survey, which was open to everyone in the sector and completed by more than 5,000 people, found that 46% of those who answered a question about the state of their mental health described it as either poor or average, and that 20% had actively sought help about their mental well-being.”
Humans’ Age-Old Fantasy Of Animals That Can Talk
We’ve had the fantasy for thousands of years – from Aesop and Plato, through the Roman de Fauvel and Montaigne and Lewis Carroll and Orwell and Disney, right through to Mr. Ed and Dogbert and LOLcats and Doge. “We polish an animal mirror to look for ourselves. But perhaps that mirror is more suited for a funhouse.”
It’s Okay To Be An Overbearing Pet Parent (Thank God)
“Neurotic people probably make pretty great pet owners, concludes the author of a new study … In an online survey of about 1,000 pet owners, people who scored higher in neuroticism and conscientiousness also reported higher levels of affection for their dog or cat, which most likely means a better life for the animals.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.29.15
Goshen Commotion: Kimmelman’s Belated, Muddled Plea to Save Architect Paul Rudolph’s Masterpiece
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-01-29
The Death of a Great Video Store
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2015-01-29
Dick Vartanian’s Little Book
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-01-29
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How To Think About Dance And Movement? Start With An Idea
“I am convinced that choreography is not only the best [art] form to buy a ticket for, it is also an orchestration of encounters, the setting up of encounters between different minds,” she said. “I hope we give audiences the possibility to enter the choreography themselves, but also to intellectually stimulate the publics we encounter, more than just satisfy them and try to do it very gently, not aggressively.”
France Considers Taxing Netflix, Amazon To Support Culture
“France has a vibrant film and television sector thanks to a system that requires television networks to hand over a proportion of their turnover to back domestic production, on top of a series of public grants and funds. The result is a diverse field of many small- to mid-size production companies, unlike in the United States, where studios and listed entertainment conglomerates dominate.”
Want To Boost Your Creativity? Study Says Ponder Who You Are
“Spending a few minutes pondering the various identities you wear—spouse, parent, employee, sports fan, political partisan, what-have-you—can lead to more creative insights.”
“Thorn Birds” Author Colleen McCullough Dies at 77
“The Thorn Birds, which has never been out of print, has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and been translated into more than 20 languages. In hardcover, it spent more than a year on the New York Times best-seller list; the paperback rights were sold at auction for $1.9 million, a record at the time.”
French Comedian Stands Trial Over Comment Against Jewish Journalist (Est-Il Charlie?)
“The provocative French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala stood trial in criminal court on Wednesday over a comment he made lamenting that a prominent Jewish journalist did not die in ‘the gas chambers,’ prosecutors said. Mr. M’bala M’bala has become an emblem in France of the struggle between upholding the secular republic’s commitment to free speech while maintaining public safety and preventing hate crimes.”