“The trailer includes a flash of Sascha Redetsky (of Center Stage fame), chair throwing, and hyper-charged (and entirely cheesy) lines like, ‘I can’t do anything with some frigid small town virgin!'”
New York City To Develop A Plan For Culture
“The legislation, which the City Council passed by a vote of 49 to 0 on Tuesday, requires the city to analyze its current cultural priorities, assess how service to different neighborhoods can be improved, study the condition of arts organizations and artists, and plan how the city can remain artist-friendly in a time of high rents and other economic pressures.”
Actor-Playwright Gets Naked To Give France’s Culture Minister A Dressing-Down On Live TV
At the award ceremony for the Molières, the country’s top theatre honors, Sébastien Thiéry came onstage completely nude to scold Fleur Pellerin: “Do you know, madame minister, that playwrights are the only ones in the profession not to have the right to receive unemployment benefits? Do you think that’s fair? … Why this discrimination? Is it because we are physically ugly?”
Dancing With Your Ex In A Piece You Made Together (It Doesn’t Have To Be Awkward)
Damien Jalet: “There was definitely a question mark when suddenly we were not a couple. Would we continue to perform this? There was a moment of transition – it was tough because, with each performance, you go back to where you were in your life when you were creating it. But for [Sidi] Larbi [Cherkaoui] and I, work had been such an important part in our relationship. We felt it was beautiful to preserve that.”
Authors Protesting Charlie Hebdo’s PEN Award Are Missing The Point: It’s Not About Islam, It’s About Courage
Laura Miller: “You can defend the right to speak without admiring the content of the speech. However, … it is the act of continuing to speak in the face of a [literally] murderous effort to silence them that the award commemorates, not the particular content of that speech.”
Wait – You Can Get An Earworm Out Of Your Head By Chewing Gum? Really?
That’s what the science appears to say (so far).
Trumpeter Rolf Smedvig, 62
“Perhaps best known as one of the founding members of the widely acclaimed Empire Brass Quintet, Smedvig enjoyed a busy career as a soloist with major orchestras, including those in Boston, Chicago and Cincinnati. In 1973, the 19-year-old Smedvig was hired as assistant principal trumpet of the Boston Symphony by music director Seiji Ozawa. Smedvig, then the youngest member of the orchestra, moved up to principal trumpet in 1979.”
Does Piano Music Help Patients In Medical Waiting Rooms?
“In the journal Musicae Scientiae, Michael Silverman and Jon Hallberg of the University of Minnesota describe a small program they created and implemented in which music students—specifically, classical pianists and guitarists—spent time performing in a primary care clinic waiting area. Subsequent interviews with staff members of the clinic found their reaction was overwhelmingly positive.”
‘The Wire,’ The Burning Of Baltimore And The Limits Of Art
“The conflagration in Baltimore is a reminder that art’s power can work both in service of change and against it. Watching a fictional story is not precisely the same thing as bearing witness. And when consuming that story becomes a substitute for action or an argument that action is futile, fiction can paralyze us just as surely as it can inspire us.”
You Won’t Learn Everything You Need To Know About Baltimore From ‘The Wire,’ But It’s A Start
Scott Timberg: “[David] Simon’s show, and his point of view, clarifies the smoky, intensely sad scene better than anything else I know.”
The Perils Of Writing About Your Own Family
George Hodgman, author of Bettyville: “You kind of have to face the fact if you write a memoir that you are a somewhat aggressive person, that you are appropriating lives, in a way, that aren’t yours. And you put yourself out there and you try to be really generous, and you do what you can to get permission, but a lot of times the permission is meaningless because they have no idea to the extent that you’re going to examine, or what you’re going to say. … So memoir is a total minefield, as you know. It’s best if you write the book and leave the country.”
How Eduardo Galeano Changed Writing (It Wasn’t With His Leftism)
The great Uruguayan author is best known for his 1971 anti-capitalist manifesto Open Veins of Latin America – a work he repudiated last year. (He calls the prose unreadable.) But his later “technique is difficult to precisely describe, but it is easy enough to read. The word most often applied is ‘fragmentary,’ though the fragments are carefully arranged into unified wholes.”
A Little Dose Of Nastiness Can Be A Creative Thing (Wait, What?)
“A spate of research published over the past couple of years reveals something surprising and new: measured amounts of dark-side traits, expressed at lower levels – too little to be considered a diagnosable personality disorder – open the doors of perception, helping us see the world through an edgier, more on-the-bias creative lens.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.28.15
Come Spring!
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2015-04-28
And the Buffalo Roam
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2015-04-28
Burroughs Makes Inroads, But What About Algren?
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2015-04-28
[ssba_hide]
Chandos Founder Brian Couzens Changed Classical Music Recording In Britain
“He steered the label through some of the recording industry’s most turbulent times, in the process championing neglected British composers, and regularly winning international awards for audio quality as well as musical excellence.”
In A Decade, The Percentage Of Female Playwrights In Britain Has Changed By … One Percent
“What the latest research demonstrates is how little progress has been made in the last 10 years on gender and play production. A decade ago, 30% of new plays produced in UK theatres were written by women. In 2013, it was 31%.”
The Oscar-Winning Cinematographer For Lord Of The Rings Dies At 59
“Words cannot express the absolute feeling of loss, particularly for his immediate family. Andrew gave us many personal cinema moments, moments that will live with us forever, and yet he has been taken from us way too early.”
These Musicians Are Memorizing Entire Symphonies
“Neuroscientists are still trying to discover why music can be resistant to memory problems. One possibility is that music, like smell, taps into primitive emotional centres in the brain that have widespread connections to other brain areas.”
The Director Of The National Museum of African American History Decides How To Curate #BlackLivesMatter
“‘It’s our job to give people voice that have been voiceless and make visible those that have been invisible,’ said [Lonnie] Bunch, addressing why the NMAAHC decided to host a symposium on such a controversial topic. ‘This must be a museum that helps America remember its past to better understand its present.'”
Opera Changed The World Of The Arts (And It’s Still Alive And Evolving For The Digital Age)
“As we become increasingly distracted, encouraged as we are in all aspects of life to contribute to the glut the Internet offers, opera and its cycle of reforms take on new importance. It is an art form inspired by the past that has proved essential to the future.”
Actress Jayne Meadows, Wife/Business Partner/Co-Star To Steve Allen, Dead At 95
“[She] was never as well known as her younger sister, Audrey, who played Alice Kramden on the now-classic Jackie Gleason sitcom The Honeymooners. But she was a versatile and accomplished actress in her own right and a familiar presence on television for years, in dramatic productions, prime-time series and game shows.”