“Does God have to be part of our understanding of the universe? No. But if scientists tell the public that they have to choose between God and science, most people will choose God … Meanwhile, many of those who choose science find themselves without any way of thinking that can give them access to their own spiritual potential. … What if we thought this way about God? What if we took the evidence of a new cosmic reality [i.e., dark matter and dark energy] seriously and became willing to rule out the impossible? What would be left?”
What Does The First New Steppenwolf Artistic Director In 20 Years Plan To Do With The Company?
“‘It will make some anxious,’ Shapiro said. ‘It will make some excited. We’ve had the same leadership for 20 years. There are people who are in prisons they think other people built.'”
Can L.A.’s Small Theaters Afford To Pay Their Actors Better? Can They Afford Not To?
Charles McNulty: “Producers have built flourishing shoestring operations on the backs of virtually unpaid actors. If the majority of performers aren’t complaining, why should their union interfere? … That’s not the way I see it. I believe that the union is concerned about the future of Los Angeles theater, recognizing that institutional growth over the long haul is in the best interest of its membership. Only time will tell whether L.A. is capable of such growth.”
Not Every Writer Can Afford To Just Donate Prize Money
“With increasing pressure for writers to work for free – some of Australia’s largest books festivals offer writers a chance to donate back their small fee and work gratis – and the vast majority of authors struggling to earn a living at all, what is the knock-on effect of these individual actions? For future award winners and for funding (prize money or otherwise), the unintended consequences could be significant.”
Do Art And Science Really Have Anything To Say To One Another?
“Art and science, we feel, should have something to say to each other. But perhaps they speak different languages after all. I don’t speak the language of science too well, either, but I do know one thing: it is concerned with the wonder of nature. There is a depressing lack of wonder in this technically sophisticated but intellectually and emotionally empty art.”
Leading Science Lab Enlists Arts To Explain Its Work
“The Arts@CERN program as well as other recent projects, like the 2014 Particle Fever documentary, are essential in making the intimidating scale of the scientific experiments at CERN approachable, along with fostering the long collaboration between art and science.”
Big Win: Board Extends Landmark Status To Interior Of Corcoran Museum
“At last month’s hearing, university representatives sought to limit the designation, saying they need flexibility to use the space for educational purposes. But in its nomination, the nonprofit DC Preservation League requested that historic status extend to most of the building, including the auditorium and basement studio space.”
García Lorca Was Killed On Official Orders, Say 1960s Police Files
“The documents, written in 1965 at the Granada police headquarters and obtained by the Guardian, are the first ever admission by Franco-era officials of their involvement in the death in 1936 of the author of Blood Wedding and The House of Bernarda Alba.”
Former Jasper Johns Aid Gets 18 Months In Prison For Art Theft
James Meyer “worked as an assistant to Johns for 25 years, and stole the works over the course of a six-year period, from 2006 to 2012. He admitted to stealing 22 works from Johns, all of which were unfinished pieces that the artist had not authorized for sale. Meyer sold them for a total of $6.5 million, and pocketed half of the proceeds.” (And now that he’s being sentences, he’s very, very sorry.)
How Well Are Museums Moving Into The Digital Future? Here Are 41 Good Examples
“The best recent innovations have been gathered in a new report, Next Practices in Digital and Technology, that the Association of Art Museum Directors is set to release on Friday. The report describes 41 museum projects that use digital technology to engage visitors, make collections more accessible and understandable or improve museum operations like ticketing and collections management.”
How Could Such A Good Broadway Revival Of ‘The Heidi Chronicles’ Flop? Is The Play That Out-Of-Date?
Does it really “represent a moment in feminism that has passed”? Or is it an important piece of history? On the other hand, observes Lisa Kron, “Does this question get asked when a Mamet play closes?”
Mixed Signals: Why People Misunderstand Each Other
Explaining the deep-seated psychological habits most of us have – the transparency illusion, the primacy effect (that’s the power of first impressions), and the fact that we all tend to be “cognitive misers” – that make it difficult to consistently get an accurate read on other people.
What On Earth Has Happened To Those Beloved Old Ballroom Dances? Competition, That’s What
Alastair Macaulay: “How should we react to a waltz in which the man’s opening move is to lift the woman and hold her horizontally along his chest as he turns? Had you thought of ‘Send in the Clowns’ as a Viennese waltz? Me neither. … It’s a tribute to the three-part PBS series America’s Ballroom Challenge … that the show broke down some of my prejudices.”
The Shakespeare’s Globe Round-The-World “Hamlet” Tour: Postcards From The Halfway Mark
“After 80,000 miles, 96 countries and more than 150 shows, the two-year worldwide tour of Hamlet has reached its halfway point in Spain – on Shakespeare’s birthday. Here’s a taste of some of the shows so far.” (slideshow)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.23.15
Big data and price discrimination: chill
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AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2015-04-23
Bernard Stollman’s ESP disks: Medici of ’60s beyond jazz
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Correspondence: Compatible Quotes – Coleman And Geller
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-04-23
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The Ten Wealthiest Musicians In The UK
“Of the 1,000 richest people in the UK and the 250 wealthiest in Ireland, the list puts Irish band U2 at third place with £431m. Pop veteran Sir Elton John and Rolling Stones’ frontman Sir Mick Jagger follow with their fortunes, thought to be worth £270m and £225m respectively.”
Literary Scholar M.H. Abrams, 102
With “The Mirror and the Lamp,” Professor Abrams almost single-handedly conferred legitimacy on the study of Romantic poetry, which had been held in low regard by the followers of New Criticism, then in its ascendancy.
YouTube Has Changed The World Of TV In 10 Years (Just Not How People Expected It To)
In one decade, YouTube has developed a culture of its own and is a threat to the conventional business model of television—but not in the way world expected.
The End Of the 500-Channel Cable Universe
“The days of the 500-channel universe are over,” Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, said at a corporate conference last month. “The days of the 150-channel universe in the home, while not necessarily over, are changing rapidly. There’s going to be people who are going to be slicing it and dicing it in different ways.”
Post-Apocalyptic Art – It WAS Fantasy (Now Prediction?)
“There is, of course, one great difference between earlier artistic impressions of the end of civilisation and these contemporary cataclysms. Today, the end of the world as we know is not a romantic fantasy, but a potential reality. Overwhelming scientific evidence minutely charts human-caused climate change. Sombre analyses carefully map the likely consequences of melting ice caps and rising sea levels on a precise timeline. We can’t look at these surreal images as playful acts of imagination; they are reasonable predictions.”
We’ve Set Up Exam Factories. That Doesn’t Work. What We Need Are Real Places Of Learning
“We are currently operating a Fordist model of mass education that is failing to prepare young people for the dramatic socioeconomic demands of the digital age. What is more worrying is that politicians, rather than supporting a schools system with the flexibility and innovation obviously needed, have fallen for a theology of standardised testing and assessment that is exacerbating the crisis.”
Gregory Pardlo’s Long Rise To Sudden Fame And The Pulitzer For Poetry
“Mr. Pardlo’s path to poetry was tortuous and unconventional, punctuated by long breaks and odd jobs. He struggled with alcoholism, which runs in his family. ‘My family’s a hot mess,’ he said.”
China’s Great, ‘Obscene,’ Frequently Banned 16th-Century Epic
For centuries, Chin P’ing Mei (The Plum in the Golden Vase) – a sprawling tale of the rise and fall of a corrupt merchant and his six wives, and only now available in a complete English version – “has been known in China as an ‘obscene book.’ Governments have banned it and parents have hidden it from children.” Yet, as a 17th-century critic put it, “anyone who says that Chin P’ing Mei is an obscene book has probably only taken the trouble to read the obscene passages.”