Yes, his angry Hitler from 2004’s Downfall was memed millions of times, but many of us remember him best as the angel Damiel from Wim Wenders’ 1987 masterpiece about divided Berlin, Wings of Desire. The actor “made his film debut as a hotel employee in The Man in the Black Derby (1961), a Swiss comedy, and was still busily making films in his late 70s.” In 2018 alone, he starred in five movies. – The New York Times
London’s Southbank Centre Pulls Ads From Daily Mail After ‘Homophobic’ Column About Famous Gay Couple’s Baby
Great Britain’s largest performing arts center is one of several organizations who have said they will no longer advertise in the UK tabloid following a column by conservative pundit Richard Littlejohn about the child that Olympic diver Tom Daley and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black are having with a surrogate mother.
Can The Artificial Intelligence Field Learn From Non-Western Philosophies?
“‘I think there is a domination of Western philosophy, so to speak, in AI ethics,” said [technology ethicist] Dr. Pak-Hang Wong … ‘By that I mean, when we look at AI ethics, most likely they are appealing to values … in the Western philosophical traditions, such as value of freedom, autonomy and so on.’ Wong is among a group of researchers trying to widen that scope, by looking at how non-Western value systems – including Confucianism, Buddhism and Ubuntu – can influence how autonomous and intelligent designs are developed and how they operate.” (audio)
Smithsonian’s Haupt Garden Is Not Worth The Trouble It Requires, And The Plan To Rip It Out Is Right
The Smithsonian’s $2 billion project to revamp the outdoor space near the Castle has been meeting some serious resistance, not least because it calls for the replacement of the formal, Victorian-style Enid A. Haupt Garden. Adrian Higgins argues that the garden is high-maintenance and expensive, especially given that (except for the annuals) its appearance is so static: “It’s time to … move on to a landscape that is more dynamic, less needy and better connects the past to a more ecologically mindful future.”
Are Music Lessons Killing My Kid’s Love Of Music?
“Might I be killing off my son’s love of music as I force him to slowly murder Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik on the piano?”
The Founding Father Of Art History (And Italian Renaissance Gossip)
“Giorgio Vasari has been variously called the father of art history, the inventor of artistic biography, and the author of ‘the Bible of the Italian Renaissance’ – a little book called The Lives of the Artists. It’s a touchstone for scholars looking to get a peek at life in Michelangelo’s day, and quite fun, too, depending on whose wildly embellished life you’re reading. Ingrid Rowland joins us on the [Smarty Pants] podcast to tell the story of the man behind the men of the Renaissance that we know so well – and, of course, to gossip a bit about Florentine egos, and even a few naughty monkeys.”
Turning Cute Kids Into Social Media Stars Is ‘Bad News For Our Relationships With Real Children’
Indeed, the entire “marketplace of cuteness”, argues Rebecca Onion, is problematic at best: “the marketplace of cuteness has less interest in age-appropriate gibberish. Instead, it demands that kids fit into an adult’s idea of what’s funny, even as they obviously, being children, are not in on the joke.”
Watching Mark Morris Dancers Teach Class For Parkinson’s Patients
“Dance for PD is a program developed by [Mark Morris Dance Group] that gives people with Parkinson’s an opportunity to experience the joy of dance while creatively addressing symptoms of the degenerative neurological disorder that affects one in 100 people over the age 60.” Reporter Jane Fries sits in on a class taught by MMDG members David Leventhal and Lesley Garrison.
City Of Sarajevo Withdraws Honor From Orhan Pamuk, Allegedly Out Of Fear Of Turkish Gov’t
“A municipal council committee, tasked with deciding on the award, this week revoked its earlier decision to honour the famous author, who is also an outspoken critic of the current political climate in Turkey. The committee has so far given no explanation for revoking the decision which had previously passed unanimously by the seven councillors.” The head of the ruling party in the Bosnian capital is close, personally and politically, to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The Pervasive Influence Of Philip Glass
Glass’ music is everywhere — in concert halls, in opera houses, on film and television soundtracks. He has created both a singular sound world and a repertoire of compositional strategies that have almost single-handedly transformed the face of contemporary music. His work has become a reference point for much of what audiences have experienced for decades.
Irish Opera – Third Time’s The Charm?
“The first Irish National Opera (INO) company ran from 1965 to 1984 and specialised in productions that toured with only piano accompaniment. The second Irish National Opera company was announced in 2009 when Martin Cullen was arts minister. International consultants advised on the setting up of the company and a general director was recruited. However, it was shut down by minister Jimmy Deenihan in 2011 without ever having presented a single production. The latest incarnation, with Fergus Sheil as artistic director and Diego Fasciati as executive director, is the outcome of an Arts Council-initiated process to restore a regular supply of natively-sourced productions of mainstream repertoire to large stages in Dublin and regional centres.”
Making Ancient Egyptian Poetry Come Alive In English (With A Kiwi Accent)
“Egyptian poetry can come across as leaden and cryptic in English translation, which is why [Richard Bruce] Parkinson” – an Egyptologist who recently translated one of the civilization’s most popular narratives, The Tale of Sinuhe – “got his friend, New Zealand-born novelist and veteran Hammer film actor Barbara Ewing, to record a dramatic rendering. She gives it staggering-hearted new life.” (includes video)
Sackler Family’s OxyContin Money Disgraces Cultural Institutions Around The World: Columnist
Psychiatrist Allen Frances, author of Twilight of American Sanity: “There is no Pablo Escobar Wing at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and no El Chapo Guzman gallery at the Guggenheim. Columbia University doesn’t host a Sinaloa Drug Cartel Center of Developmental Psychobiology. Oxford would no longer be Oxford if its library were named in honor of the Cali drug cartel. … We agree to aggressively prohibit the sale of blood diamonds, but we allow the Sacklers’ clever use of blood money to cloak their drug shame under philanthropic fame.”
Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre Loses Two-Thirds Of Its Federal Funding After Harassment Scandal
“A planned increase in federal funding for Soulpepper Theatre has been voted down by the Canada Council for the Arts’ board of directors. On Thursday, the council’s board voted to rescind an increase of $375,500 the theatre company was set to receive. That was on top of a $184,500 ‘core grant’ which the company will still collect this year and again next year … After four civil suits were launched against former artistic director Albert Schultz in January, the granting agency placed Soulpepper on ‘concerned status’ and conducted a review.”
Study: The Economics Of Being A Musician In The UK
Over half of musicians worked unpaid over the past 12 months, and 66% of musicians who worked for free ‘exposure’ believe doing so did not benefit their career, according to the ‘world-first’ live music census. It also reveals that in the past year one in three music venues have struggled to cope with a business rates increase and 27% of venues have been affected by noise complaints.
UK Museums’ Collecting Crisis
The implications for collecting are stark. Only half of the UK’s museums and galleries have money to make acquisitions, and “they often failed to obtain the art or the objects they sought, either because they lacked sufficient funds, or because the prices were too high.”
Is Gibson Guitars Going Bankrupt?
A Nashville reporter and editor says the financial situation looks bleak for the epic, storied guitar company. “The situation facing the iconic Nashville-based music instrument maker, which has annual revenues of more than $1 billion, is far from normal. … CFO Bill Lawrence recently left the company after less than a year on the job and just six months before $375 million of senior secured notes will mature. On top of that, another $145 million in bank loans will come due immediately if those notes, issued in 2013, are not refinanced by July 23rd.”
This Ballerina And Choreographer Is Unafraid To Push Discussions About Gender And Ballet
Lauren Lovette, whose “Not Our Fate” for New York City Ballet featured a pas de deux for two men, says she’s proud to be a part of this ballet-world conversation. “A lot of times, we talk about things but we don’t actually do them. … We’ll post on social media, but when you actually make art that represents what you’re trying to say, you’re a part of the action.”
Women In Opera Have Launched A Campaign To Make Things Better For Parents
It’s got a catchy name: SWAP’ra – and it’s for all working parents in opera, both onstage and off. “While still at an early stage, some of the organisation’s aims include providing grants towards childcare for mothers who are returning to work and setting up a creche for working parents.”
Lerone Bennett Jr., Historian And Longtime Editor Of Ebony Magazine, Has Died At 89
Bennett Jr., whose best-known book was Before the Mayflower, “was both lyrical and outspoken in his writing, arguing that the history of black people in the United States had been ignored or told only through a white filter.”
Weinstein Company Fires Its President And COO ‘For Cause’
The company won’t say what the “cause” is against David Glasser, but “Glasser came under fire this week after the New York attorney general’s office sued the studio, alleging civil rights violations.”
The Organs That Power Broadway
These two organs are being replaced, for good reason: “‘It is soul-numbing to play that thing,’ Mr. Wachner, the church’s hard-driving director of music and arts, said of the digital instrument in Trinity Church, on Lower Broadway. He also called the Schlicker pipe organ, long resident in St. Paul’s Chapel, Trinity’s historic satellite a few blocks north, ‘tendinitis central.'”
André Harvey, Who Sculpted The Natural World, Has Died At 76
After working in other careers and getting inspired by sculptures he saw through a window in Paris, “Mr. Harvey became a masterly sculptor of intricately detailed, realistic bronze figures whose works were exhibited by Tiffany & Company in its Fifth Avenue flagship store, have been collected by museums, and were purchased by Henry Fonda, Jamie Wyeth, Barry Manilow and Danielle Steel.”
Black Panther Didn’t Just Have Special Spaceship And Set And Costume Design, But A Jewelry Designer As Well
Jewelry designer Douriean Fletcher met costume designer Ruth E. Carter by chance, twice – the second time when she was playing an extra and getting a costume fitting on the set of “Roots,” designed by Carter. “‘At first, I didn’t even recognize her,’ Carter said recently. ‘But when I did, I told her to take off her costume and get to work creating pieces on my show.'”
How ‘Lolita’ Provided One Teenaged Victim A Path Out Of Sexual Abuse And Molestation
“I wanted to read Lolita because I believed it would mitigate my sexual shame. The similarity between the novel’s plot and my day-to-day life had sent me on a Google search, where I read excerpts and watched trailers of both film adaptations, categorized under ‘crime,’ ‘drama’ and ‘romance.’ Until then it had never occurred to me to consider my relationship with my uncle under any of those genres.”