“Despite how much our world has changed, it’s surprising how many of the conversations we were having back in 1999 are still going on today, though sadly not everyone involved with those conversations is still with us today.”
The Japanese Filmmaker Who’s Greater Than Kurosawa Or Ozu
Richard Brody: “There’s no way to say this without sounding derivative, but I consider [Kenji] Mizoguchi to be not just the greatest Japanese director but one of the handful of the greatest filmmakers ever.”
Unmasking ‘Japan’s Beethoven’: The Aftermath
Since it was revealed in February that wildly popular deaf composer Mamoru Samuragochi is, in fact, neither deaf nor a composer, the scandal “has produced numerous musings and self-chastisements in Japan and overseas. NHK issued a ten-page explanation of its failure to properly fact-check Samuragochi’s claims before broadcasting its documentary. … There has been finger-pointing in the Japanese media over who knew and why no one reported what they knew or asked questions.”
What Makes Them So Sure That Dictionary They Found On eBay Was Shakespeare’s?
There’s no ironclad proof like traces of Will’s DNA, but the handwritten annotations in the book offer some interesting circumstantial evidence of not only who owned the dictionary but what play he was working on when he used it. (audio)
Alonzo King Says His Ballets Are ‘Thought Structures’
“Everything begins with thinking. “Music is thought made audible. Dance is thought made visible. … Every ballet is about something; it’s not just a series of steps.”
For the Love of Numbers
“It’s hard to think of anything more rational, more logical and impersonal than a number. But what if we’re all, universally, also deeply attuned to how numbers … feel? Why 2 is warm, 7 is strong and 11 is downright mystical.” (audio)
Iranian-Irish Novelist Dies At 36 Before Finishing Planned Series
Marsha Mehran: “I was learning three languages simultaneously (Farsi at home, English at school and Spanish in the streets). Every night before going to bed, I was required to say good night in all three languages: ‘Shab bekheir, buenas noches and good night.'”
So Here’s A Major NY Dance Festival. And Where Are The Female Choreographers?
“Here we are in 2014, still having to ask one of ballet’s biggest and, in many ways, most forward-thinking institutions, Where are the female choreographers?”
So Stephen Hawking Is Worried About AI, But Margaret Atwood Isn’t As Stressed
“Atwood has a foolproof plan to stop our increasingly intelligent and powerful machines from rising up and taking over control of the planet: Make sure any robots we build have an easy-access ‘off’ switch.”
The ‘Bumpy’ Whistler That Hides A Portrait Of His Mistress
“They noticed bumps on the surface of The Last of Old Westminster, 1862, so MacDonald asked for an X-ray. What she found was ‘staggering’ — an entirely different composition, flipped sideways, of a young woman reading. ‘I immediately said, “It is Joanna. It is Joanna Hiffernan.”‘”
Buying A Cézanne On The Cheap In Paris As Germans Bombarded The City
“As the auction began, Paris was rocked by the sound of shells from a German super-gun, firing from a railway line 80 miles away. Some bidders fled, prices tumbled, and Holmes and Keynes were able to secure some real bargains.”
How Ai Weiwei Attempts To Overcome The Chinese Surveillance State
“He tethered a bicycle outside his studio last November. Every day, he places fresh flowers in its basket, takes a photograph, and posts the image online. This gentle protest, which offers a palate of bright relief against the polluted skies, will continue until his passport is returned.”
A Critic Interviews His Own Most Prolific And Vocal Critic
“‘I burned your name in a fire at New Year’s,’ the playwright and director confessed in a pre-interview phone call to suss out my intentions.”
Should Charitable Giving Inoculate The Giver From Criticism?
“The neighbor who comes with his garden hose to put out the fire in my house is no hero if he is the one who set my house on fire or if his failure to support the local fire company is the reason it can no longer respond.”
When Rupert Murdoch Owns All Of The Romances (News Corp. Buying Harlequin)
“Like the rest of the book publishing industry, Harlequin is dealing with declining revenue and income, a product of the continuing shift toward digital books. The mass-market, grocery-store paperback, long the company’s bread and butter, is rapidly disappearing.”
Taking ‘Game Of Thrones’ From Page To Screen Means Anger About Its Many, Many Rape Scenes
“As the books are adapted for other media, sequences that were described obliquely in the novels have become more explicit, more outrageous and more problematic.”
Please Don’t Print Out And Snail Mail That Finished Novel To Yourself
“Expert Village made a step-by-step video about the poor man’s copyright, and though it mentions at the end that the mail-it-to-yourself trick won’t hold up well in court, the video still presents it as a viable option. It seems that the tactic may be more valuable in the U.K. and France (where it’s known as the ‘Soleau envelope’).”
This Summer, Have Some Curated Art With Your Large Pop Music Festival
“Lollapalooza has it all. Except art. Specifically, a big, thoughtfully curated art show. And so, this summer, Lollapalooza is getting a group exhibition so enormous that, if street artist/curator Shepard Fairey has his way, its largest murals will stay in Chicago long after the buzzsaw thump of Skrillex dislodges your brain stem.”
Here’s What Author Junot Díaz Asks His MIT Students To Read
“He teaches two courses within MIT’s Comparative Media Studies/Writing Department, one on fantasy ‘world-building’ and one section of advanced fiction. They both seem too good to be true.”
Comic Books Used To Have Black Astronauts And A Lot Of Outlaw Feminist Women – Then, Censorship
“The comics world … was a cacophonous bazaar of stories: sometimes thrilling, sometimes confusing, sometimes revolting. But that bazaar was swiftly and mercilessly dismantled in 1954 by the newly formed Comics Code Authority. It was replaced with a viciously policed shopping mall whose effects resonate today.”
Are The Digital Humanities A False God?
“Here is the future, we are made to understand: we can either get on board or stand athwart it and get run over. The same kind of revolutionary rhetoric appears again and again in the new books on the digital humanities, from writers with very different degrees of scholarly commitment and intellectual sophistication.”
Portrait Of A Celebrity Canadian Arts Administrator
Jeff Melanson is “a disruptive innovator and so I think it would be safe to say that status quo is not going to be the way the Toronto Symphony moves forward.”
The Myth Of The “Poor Man’s Copyright”
“The practice of sending a copy of your own work to yourself is sometimes called a ‘poor man’s copyright.’ There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration.”
Michelangelo’s David Could Be brought Down By Weak Ankles?
“According to findings from Italy’s National Research Council and the University of Florence, the famous marble sculpture has tiny cracks around its ankles that could cause a serious problem for the masterpiece’s prolonged stability.”
Pennsylvania Ballet Artistic Director Steps Down
“Roy Kaiser, who joined the corps de ballet of the Pennsylvania Ballet in 1979 and rose through its ranks to principal before eventually becoming artistic director of the company in 1995, has announced that he is stepping down.”