“In 1991, there were 176 certified librarians in city schools. Now there are 11 – for 218 schools. Studies have shown that students who have access to a school library and librarian – particularly students who live in poverty and students of color – achieve more. Increasingly in Philadelphia, school libraries are regarded as a frill, and librarians even more so.”
How To Be A Stoic
“As much as I love the Star Trek character of Mr. Spock (which Gene Roddenberry actually modeled after his – mistaken – understanding of Stoicism), those are two of a number of misconceptions about what it means to be a Stoic. In reality, practicing Stoicism is not really that different from, say, practicing Buddhism (or even certain forms of modern Christianity).”
Even With Tanks And Shelling, The Show Goes On At This Ukrainian Opera House
“In a city where armed men in camouflage ride down the main street in tanks, more than half of the residents have fled and most shops and restaurants are closed, opera should perhaps be the last thing on anyone’s mind. But remarkably, and against all the odds, [Donetsk’s] opera house has remained open, despite the fact that none of the troupe have been paid in months, all four conductors have left town and the singers take a risk every time they travel to work. It is a risk, however, that they say is worth it.”
Double Mastectomy Survivor Tells What It’s Like To Do Major Stand-Up Comedy Gig Topless
“But nothing could prepare the audience for set at New York City’s Town Hall last November, where [Tig Notaro] stunned attendees by removing her shirt and performing the rest of her set topless. … We asked her how she came up with the idea, how it felt to perform without a shirt on, and whether the venue had any idea what was coming.” (video)
A Window Into Jane Austen’s World, Through The Letters Of Her Mother’s Family
“The Huntington Library in California has acquired 52 unpublished letters, poems and other material from six generations of the Leigh family. Austen’s mother was Cassandra Leigh, and the novelist visited her Leigh family in Adlestrop several times, with some believing that the setting of Mansfield Park is partly drawn from the Gloucestershire village.”
San Francisco Symphony Musicians Have New Three-Year-Contract
“[The agreement comes] less than two years after a strike that led to the cancellation of several local concerts and a high-profile East Coast tour.” Said the chair of the musicians’ committee of that strike, “I think everybody was a little unnerved by what happened,” which made these negotiations smoother.
When Arts Organizations Get Distracted By Fundraising
“The constant pressure to increase support often generates an impulse to create something new in order to drive funding and public interest — a new fundraising event, a new educational program, a new artistic offering. This is entirely justifiable; funders tend to respond to new opportunities that broaden or deepen their philanthropic impacts. However, the impulse to create new fundraising “hooks” can also be a trap.”
Report: More New Work Than Revivals In UK Theatre In 2014
“It found that new work – including original plays, musicals, pantomime and opera – made up 59% of all productions, 66% of all performances, 63% of all seats sold and 66% of box office income.”
This Is Progress? Toronto Has Too Many International Theatre Festivals
Audience outreach will ultimately determine if Progress succeeds, because as it stands, Toronto likely has too few regular showgoers to sustain this boom in international theatre.
Studies: Americans Overestimate Class Mobility
Across four studies, Americans offered “substantial and consistent overestimates of class mobility, overestimating the amount of income mobility and educational access by a wide margin.”
Would Having A Smithsonian In London Really Be A Good Thing?
“For the new museums that have opened with an old name, it’s important to ask: what do they get for the money – and is it worth it? They don’t always get the good stuff in return. It is estimated that Boris Johnson would need to raise £33 million for the Smithsonian in East London, and experience should tell us that such estimates are usually unrealistic and low.”
Should New York City Opera Be Revived? (Where’s The Upside?)
“Can NYCO-R compete with smaller innovative works such as “Why is Eartha Kitt trying to Kill Me?” at the fashionable (le) Poisson Rouge, or the sexy twist on opera that Operotica and L’Opera Burlesque offer? Does New York need another “major” opera company and will a resurrected NYCO will be able to find its footing in the even more crowded field of smaller opera companies and recapture even a modicum of its former glory?”
Don’t Worry About Artificial Intelligence Ending The World, But Do Worry About Your Job
“We’re entering a ‘second machine age,’ where the accelerating rate of change brought on by digital technologies could leave millions of medium-and-low skilled workers behind.”
When The Culture Wars Really Mattered
It is hard to avoid a feeling of nostalgia for the virulent days of the “culture wars,” when participants on different sides of the debate shared a common conviction about the importance of a humanist education.
They’ve Found Michelangelo’s Only Surviving Metal Sculptures
“Two handsome, virile naked men riding triumphantly on ferocious panthers … Academics in Cambridge will suggest that [this] pair of mysterious metre-high sculptures known as the Rothschild Bronzes are by the master himself, made just after he completed David and as he was about to embark on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.”
So Just What Features Led Scholars To Attribute These Bronzes To Michelangelo?
A look at the evidence – sculptural, thematic, biographical, cultural, pictorial, and graphic.
America’s Existential Crisis, As Illustrated By Super Bowl Ads
“[It’s] the kind of existential crisis that only God’s iPhone, Marshawn Lynch’s Skittles, and a car with an erection can heal. America is hangry [sic]. America can’t sleep. America is very, very worried about getting old and irrelevant and physically stuck on the couch shouting at a football game while other, younger countries are going to super-cool Pac Man parties and flipping tires over for no discernible reason and seducing elderly wives in leopard-print camisoles.”
Pianist Aldo Ciccolini Dead At 89
“A passionate champion of French composers, he recorded more than 50 albums, mostly of French repertoire, and along the way championed many underrepresented French composers, especially Erik Satie.”
A Brief History Of Loving To Read
“For a long time, people didn’t love literature. They read with their heads, not their hearts (or at least they thought they did), and they were unnerved by the idea of readers becoming emotionally attached to books and writers. It was only over time, Lynch writes – over the century roughly between 1750 and 1850 – that reading became a ‘private and passional’ activity, as opposed to a ‘rational, civic-minded’ one.”
Technicolor At 100 – It Changed Visual Storytelling Forever
“There’s some irony in the fact that colorizing film – ostensibly to make it look more like the real world – may have cemented the medium’s dreamy, escapist quality. The three-color process, in particular, created films punctuated by colors so electric they were surreal.”
Anton Chekhov Wrote The Best Work Of Journalism Of The 19th Century
Akhil Sharma on Sakhalin Island, an account of life in prison camps in that isolated spot off Siberia’s Pacific coast: “The fact that so few people know of the book, and that among Western critics (not necessarily Russian ones) it is considered a minor masterpiece instead of a major one … has something to do with how journalism is rarely considered literature. But it has even more to do with the lies that Chekhov told to get access to the prison colony.”
Professional Dance Critic Defends Super Bowl’s “Bad Left Shark”
“The breakout stars of last night’s Super Bowl halftime show were, needless to say, the sharks. Flanking Katy Perry, they mutely waved their fins and flapped their jaws to the words of ‘Teenage Dream.’ … But Left Shark, (who, for what it’s worth, was actually ‘stage right shark’), visibly struggling with the choreography, promptly became the butt of the internet’s jokes.” But we should cut him some slack. (includes video)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 02.02.15
Pay-what-you-decide at the theatre
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2015-02-02
The Earthquake is Coming. How Do We Withstand it?
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-02-02
Ezra Sims (1928-2015)
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2015-02-02
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The Making Of A Hip-Hop Musical – About Founding Father Alexander Hamilton
“The headlong rise of one self-made immigrant becomes the story of America. Hamilton announces himself in a signature refrain: ‘Hey, yo, I’m just like my country / I’m young, scrappy and hungry / And I’m not throwing away my shot.'”
For Two Weeks, Reclusive Writer Haruki Murakami Has Been Answering Fan Questions Online
“The website is part advice column, part author Q & A. Murakami told readers they could ask about any subject — but he did note that he was particularly interested in cats and Japanese baseball.”