Architectural commissions that once might have seemed benign look more and more like matters of conscience. We know, for instance, that greenfield development destroys wildlife habitats even as species extinctions are occurring at a catastrophic rate. We know that projects in the United Arab Emirates are being built with slave labor. We know that luxury housing in New York and other cities has become a vehicle for international money laundering.
Today’s “Thought Leaders” Tread A Very Narrow Line
Today, our most famous purveyors of ideas sell themselves to the wealthy much like the courtiers of the Middle Ages. Daniel Drezner notes that these ideas are therefore shaped by the “aversion” that plutocrats share toward addressing the problems we face. Inequality? Global warming? Populist nihilism? An explosion of global refugees? From a Silicon Valley perspective, Drezner notes, such things are not a failure of our system but rather “a piece of faulty code that need[s] to be hacked.” Examining data from a survey of Silicon Valley corporate founders, Drezner notes their shared belief that “there’s no inherent conflict between major groups in society (workers vs. corporations, citizens vs. government, or America vs. other nations).”
Conductor Louis Frémaux, 95
Known for an extensive discography on the Erato and EMI labels and for his posts with the City of Birmingham Symphony and Sydney Symphony, Frémaux “was the only major orchestral conductor to serve two spells as an officer in the Foreign Legion.”
Podcasters Are Bringing Alcoholics Anonymous Into The Digital Age
While there’s no such thing as an “official” podcast for any 12-step program, “plug ‘AA’ or ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’ or ‘Recovery’ into your iTunes search and you’ll find the options are abundant and growing.” Emanuel Cavallaro meets several of the people making and distributing these podcasts.
Skaters Put An Art-Deco Half-Pipe Inside ‘Detroit’s Largest Art Object’
“It’s a sight Fisher Building architect Albert Kahn couldn’t fathom in 1928: a five-foot mini-ramp packed with skateboarders in one of his greatest architectural achievements. In Detroit, such a brash juxtaposition is becoming the norm.”
Independent Film-making As We Knew It Is Gone
“In recent years, many of the indie-boutique shingles that the major studios once supported — Paramount Vantage, Warner Independent Pictures — have closed up shop. They’ve become victims of an increasingly corporatized, IP-centric major studio strategy. Those that remain, including Fox Searchlight, Miramax, and Focus Features, have been weakened.”
The More You Use Facebook, The Worse You Feel, Says (Yet More) Research
“So, while we know that old-fashioned social interaction is healthy, what about social interaction that is completely mediated through an electronic screen? When you wake up in the morning and tap on that little blue icon, what impact does it have on you?” Well, …
Transgender Dancers Work To Challenge The Genre’s Norms
Brian Schaefer pays a visit to the Brooklyn-based company Ballez, whose director, Katy Pyle, says, “We’re using these definitions of masculinity and femininity to create something that’s not neutral, but it’s layered and it’s complicated.”
Here’s Who Uses UK Libraries
“Around half of the population of the UK and Ireland continue to use libraries. Nearly half (46%) of people aged 25 to 34 still visit them according to the study – a rise of 2%.”
Hillary Clinton Has Been Broadway’s Biggest Fan This Winter. Should She Present At The Tonys?
“Since the presidential election, private citizen Hillary Clinton has permitted herself two main types of recreation: hiking in the woods outside her Westchester County home and attending Broadway shows. Clinton has been the biggest unbilled star on Broadway this spring season, and there is no better endorsement than her heartfelt fandom.”
Louis Sarno, Who Spent 30 Years Preserving Music Of The Pygmies, Dead At 62
“Even as he evolved into their doctor, interpreter, educator and chief negotiator with outside buyers and suppliers, he often found himself in a paradoxical position: A Westerner committed to safeguarding the ancestral cultural traditions of a clan that was growing accustomed to – and even preferred – modern comforts.”
Scientists Say We Dream Way More Than We Think We Do
“There is much more dreaming going on than we remember. It’s hours and hours of mental experiences and we remember a few minutes.”
‘Akhnaten’ And Mark Wigglesworth Win Opera Prizes At Olivier Awards
Phelim McDermott’s English National Opera production – starring a naked nude Anthony Roth Costanzo – of the Philip Glass opera about the iconoclastic pharaoh won for best new opera production, while conductor Mark Wigglesworth – who stormed away from the ENO’s music directorship in March of last year to protest funding cuts – was honored for outstanding achievement in opera for his conducting of Don Giovanni and Lulu at the company.
Crystal Pite, Matthew Bourne, English National Ballet Take Olivier Awards For Dance
“Crystal Pite and actor/playwright Jonathon Young won Best New Dance Production for Betroffenheit, their harrowing exploration of loss and grief [at Sadler’s Wells]. … Tamara Rojo has made some gutsy choices since becoming artistic director in 2012, and ENB’s Best Achievement in Dance Olivier ‘for expanding the variety of their repertoire with Giselle and She Said at Sadler’s Wells’ is just one more spot of validation. … Not only did he garner the Best Theatre Choreographer award for his production of The Red Shoes, Bourne also got to accept the award for Best Entertainment and Family, again for The Red Shoes.”
Last-Ever Round Of Annenberg Arts Fellowships Announced
“The Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund for the Performing and Visual Arts … has distributed $6 million to 70 [early-career] artists over 10 years … The program was intended from its inception to end this year – the technical term is a ‘wasting endowment,’ created to be spent and then concluded – so the 2017 recipients will be its last.”
New Yorker Theatre Critic Hilton Als Wins Pulitzer Prize For Criticism
“For decades, Als has been a highly visible public intellectual. … In addition to writing his regular columns for The New Yorker, Als is an author, photographer, curator, and overall cultural force.”
Playwright Lynn Nottage Wins Her Second Pulitzer For ‘Sweat’
With her drama, now on Broadway, about working-class folks in a struggling Pennsylvania factory town, Nottage becomes the first woman playwright to win two Pulitzer Prizes.
Colson Whitehead’s ‘Underground Railroad’ Wins 2017 Pulitzer For Fiction
“The Pulitzer comes after The Underground Railroad won the National Book Award, after it was selected for Oprah’s Book Club, and after Moonlight director Barry Jenkins signed on to adapt it for television.”
Matthew Desmond’s ‘Evicted’ Wins Nonfiction Pulitzer, And Housing Advocates Are Beside Themselves
Henry Grabar: “In short, Evicted the book that everyone who thinks about housing for a living has been reading or giving to their friends.”
Pulitzer Prize For Biography Goes To Hisham Matar’s ‘The Return’
“Matar’s latest book details his return to Libya in 2012 as he sought the truth [of] his father’s fate, decades after he was kidnapped by Colonel Qaddafi’s secret security [forces]. … His first novel, In the Country of Men, was nominated for the 2006 Man Booker Prize.”
History Pulitzer Goes To Heather Ann Thompson’s ‘Blood In The Water’; Tyehimba Jess’s ‘Olio’ Takes Pulitzer For Poetry
“Thompson’s book explores an infamous [1971] riot at the Attica Correctional Facility [in New York state] that involved 1,300 prisoners and ultimately led to the deaths of 39 people. … [Jess’s volume] tells the stories behind America’s blues, work songs and church hymns.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.10.17
Cunningham Redivivus
Compagnie CNDC Angers – Robert Swinston bring three dances by Merce Cunningham to New York. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2017-04-09
Entertaining Consent — Seriously
Nina Raine’s new drama, Consent, can now be seen in a stunning in-the-round production at the National Theatre’s small Dorfman auditorium – but the play is so good (and has been so well reviewed) that it will not be surprising if it transfers to the West End. Or even to Broadway, despite its essential Englishness. … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2017-04-10
Extraordinary UTEP
I could say many things about my two days last week at UTEP, the University of Texas at El Paso. … What I most took away was what I learned about the university itself. Certainly one of the most inspiring stories in higher education. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2017-04-10
Jeff Parker and Jazz Guitar
For months now, one of the most intriguing instrumentalists in Los Angeles has been unspooling his style for the price of a drink in a small bar in Highland Park. … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2017-04-10
The thirty-day movie challenge
The response to my recently posted list of my favorite films from each of the sixty-one years of my life today was so favorable that I decided to respond to yet another popular movie meme. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2017-04-10
Listen To The Piece That Won This Year’s Pulitzer Prize For Music
Du Yun’s “Angel’s Bone” wins. The Pulitzer jury described it as “a bold operatic work that integrates vocal and instrumental elements and a wide range of styles into a harrowing allegory for human trafficking in the modern world.”
Music Streaming Up 39 Percent From A Year Ago
“Consumers initiated 133.9 billion streams in the first quarter, up from 99.1 billion during the same period last year, continuing the growth of 39% overall in 2016 compared to 2015. Translated as album sales, using a formula that assigns one sale for every 1,500 song streams, the music industry also experienced continued growth, but at a more modest rate of 5.9%. Unit sales of track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA) increased from 137.4 million last year to 145.5 million so far in 2017.”
FBI Warns There Could Be “Hundreds More” High-End Fakes By Master Forger
So far, the bureau has identified 40 fake works. They fear that many others exist, including some that were sold through New York auction houses, causing for the warning to be released: “There could be hundreds more that were sold to unsuspecting victims.”