“Almost everything we humans do collectively spawns an emergent phenomenon. … Economies, governments and the media are all emergent phenomena – like an ant colony. They follow new and complicated rules that often cannot be derived from the behavior of the parts that make them up. They are real and have immense power over us, but they are not human or humanlike, even though they arise from human activities.”
Two Tiny European ‘News Sites’ Hack Facebook For Viral News With Just One Problem – It’s Fiction
“One of CEN’s specialities – as with the naked Russians – is to offer its clients a story to accompany a particularly compelling image.”
How I Survived A Public Shaming Over A Silly Mistake
“When a Web site broke the news on April 3 that, instead of posting an Internet link to an article about writing legal briefs, I had inadvertently sent my law school students a link to a porn site, I thought I could never recover. (And if you’re hoping to find out here how that happened, among the many possibilities that have been raised by gleeful commentators, I’m sorry to tell you you’re going to be disappointed.)”
A Slice Of Americana: The (Extremely Sweary) Deranged Sorority Girl Email Cantata
“While waiting for things to get going, composers near my chair were debating just how Calianno would manage to set ‘cunt punt’ anyway.”
What Happens When Dudes Have To Go On Point For A Ballet
“The women in the company have given us a few tips. But mostly they find it very amusing.”
Making Good Theatre, Political Or Not, For Actors With Disabilities
“The £3m, three-year Unlimited initiative aims to give venues a choice of work and stop them from, as Verrent put it, ‘programming shit, and the first piece of work that they came across with a wheelchair and a guide dog in it.'”
An Art Critic Skewers The MoMA Björk Show, In Verse Akin To The Vapid Audio Guide
“The girl continues, step by step,
the critic girl, girl critic
listening to the audio guide, with its stories that are free, so free —
free of context, free of facts, free even of the lava girl’s name,
a lava girl, in the shadow of 50, still being described as a ‘girl.'”
Cai Guo-Qiang Explains What’s Missing In Contemporary Chinese Art
“The first few times the Chinese contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang tried to make gunpowder drawings, his art caught on fire—literally. His early method involved hanging blank canvases and oil paintings on the wall and throwing rocket fireworks at them.”
The Convention Where Hollywood Woos The Theaters
“Unlike, say, Comic-Con, movie fans are not invited. Instead, theater owners from around the world come to see everything from the latest projectors, new food items to sell alongside the popcorn, and of course, the movies themselves.”
A Principal Dancer Moves On – To Conflict Resolution
“‘As a performer, you create situations from the inside,’ [Dana Caspersen] said. ‘Now I’m interested in looking more broadly at bigger structures: How do our actions shape our world, and how does the world shape our actions?'”
A Modernist Composer Who Swore Off Opera As A Youngster Is About To Premiere His Tenth
Peter Eotvos: “It was so random, so chaotic, especially in contrast to our electronic studio where we worked with unbelievable precision.”
‘Rosie The Riveter’ Model Never Actually Posed For Norman Rockwell, Became A Dental Hygienist
“Keefe posed as Rosie not for Rockwell but for his photographer, Gene Pelham, in two sessions, lasting about two hours in all. She was paid $5 (roughly $144 in today’s dollars) per session.”
The Tony Awards: They’re About PR, People, Not ‘Good’ Theatre
“The Tony system canonizes a subset of a subset, making the odds of any one show or person pocketing a Tony rather less impressive. What’s more, the awardees and runners-up have typically been nurtured beyond Broadway — often in the nonprofit theaters that have grown up across the United States since the mid-20th century.”
Scotland Buys Botticelli To Keep It In Scotland. Only It’s Not There.
“Like an ageing rock star, it’s on tour, put to work to raise money. The first performance was at the Frick Collection in New York. It’s now on display at the de Young Museum in San Francisco until May, when it will travel to the Kimbell Art Museum. Texas will hang the Botticelli after all. Visitors in Edinburgh will come face to face with a blank space on the wall.”
Film Critic Richard Corliss, 71
“He could have a fanboy’s enthusiasm for his favorite genres – he was big on Bollywood before Bollywood was cool – but he never checked his brains at the popcorn stand. He was of a generation of critics who disputed cinema the way Lutherans and Papists once faced off over theology. But he was nothing if not a sporting polemicist.”
Cleveland Playhouse Wins 2015 Regional Tony
“Cleveland Playhouse prides itself on being a longtime champion for new work, having presented Tennesee Williams before “The Glass Menagerie” and, more recently, premiering titles by Ken Ludwig, Lee Blessing and Deborah Zoe Laufer. Pulitzer winner Quiara Alegria Hudes is working on a commission for the company that will bow next season.”
Dancer Turned Soldier Turned Actor
“His intention had always been to return to Broadway after the Army to try acting as an adult. For now, he’s dancing and will perform in “On the Town” through mid-June, after having successfully filled in as a last-minute replacement in February.”
Tate Modern Director Steps Down
“It will be announced in Germany on Friday afternoon that Dercon, who is Belgian, has been lured to take over from Frank Castorf in 2017, another coup for the country’s culture ministry which also persuaded the British Museum’s Neil MacGregor to move the city to take charge of the committee overseeing the new Humboldt-Forum cultural centre.”
Kenyan Government Denounces Its Own Venice Biennale Pavilion
“Outrage had been growing within Kenya’s artistic community ever since it was announced that only one Kenyan had been selected to represent the country at this year’s international exhibition, along with six Chinese artists (none of whom live or work in Kenya) and one Italian artist.”
Here’s What Hollywood Insiders Think About New York Movie Critics
“As part of the New York issue, THR asked studio heads, marketing chiefs, directors, screenwriters and a slew of industry types for their collective ranking of the city’s top critics.”