One anti-feminist blogger calls the action film starring Charlize Theron a “Trojan Horse [that] feminists and Hollywood leftists will use to insist on the trope women are equal to men in all things. … If you were like me, the explosions, fire tornadoes, even the symphonic score surrounding Fury Road‘s first trailer made your attendance a foregone conclusion. It looked like a straight-up guy flick.”
In London, The Stars Are Onstage
“These stars are just the latest wave of big-name actors to appear on the London stage, which can burnish an already glowing reputation, reboot a career or simply provide a challenge like no other.”
How A Blighted Urban Street Got Shortlisted For This Year’s Turner Prize
“Most locals might still be in a state of baffled amusement that the DIY handiwork of a young London-based architecture collective, Assemble, in doing up some of the area’s empty homes has been shortlisted for the country’s most prestigious art award.”
Minnesota Orchestra Leads An Expected New Wave Of Cultural Ambassadors To Cuba
The Minnesotans are at the vanguard of what is expected to be a flurry of cultural cross-pollination now that there are signs of a diplomatic thaw. The relationship has been a fraught one for more than a century.
Public Radio Is Membership-Supported. But That “Membership” Is Changing
“Though membership has always been a core part of public media, over the past several years, public radio has been grappling with new questions concerning membership and listener loyalty. The traditional form of building membership and leveraging organizational loyalty — the pledge drive — has declined in effectiveness, and new conversations are beginning about how to recruit and retain members who access content off-air.”
Who Will Be The Next Director Of The Brooklyn Museum?
“Whoever is selected will inherit an institution whose endowment roughly tripled during Mr. Lehman’s tenure, to $123 million. The museum’s annual operating budget has more than doubled, to $35 million, and its audience is both young—with a median age of 34—and diverse.”
The Man Who Has Painted A Picture Of Obama Every Day Of His Presidency
“On the day that Obama was inaugurated in 2009, Pruitt made a 2-foot-by-2-foot painting of the president, based on a photographic image taken from the news and rendered in a subdued palette of washed-out red, blue and white. The next day he painted a second. The next day he painted a third. The next … well, you get the idea.”
It Was The 1950s. Soviet Russia. We Made Jazz Bootlegs In The Back Of The Store
“What the printing press was to the samizdat publishers, this little hunk of metal became to a burgeoning scene of jazz fiends. It wasn’t long before a small community of music lovers began haunting his shop, snapping up record after record and lining Philo’s pockets with dirty money.”
Christopher Knight: The Whitney Museum Misrepresented My Criticism
“I can certainly understand why the Whitney Museum might be embarrassed by a review critical of its institutional failure with the 1993 Biennial. But posting a fallacious sign 22 years later merely indicates that the institutional failure continues.”
Scientists Figure Out Why You Saw That Dress As White-And-Gold Or Blue-And-Black
“We make assumptions about the world that guide the interpretation of sensory data, and these assumptions can be quite different for different individuals.”
David Letterman, Great American Broadcaster
“Nobody would have been shocked if, as Letterman aged, he simply tried to cling to his younger irreverence, flinging his 68-year-old self to Velcro walls, like in the old days. That’s what TV does to people who want to stay on TV, and it’s usually a cringefest. Instead, Letterman began a quiet but noticeable transformation to a broader, more open, human version of himself.”
Glamour And An Iron Grip: Kevin Spacey’s Tenure At London’s Old Vic
Michael Billington: “In fact, Spacey … has done everything possible to restore the fortunes of the Old Vic. He has given the theatre stability and, through his presence as an actor, glamour. He has tirelessly raised funds to ensure its future. He has also done a lot of unheralded work to encourage young people through a scheme with the umbrella title of Old Vic New Voices.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.14.15
Catching Up With Bobby Shew
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-05-14
From Denmark to New York
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2015-05-14
So you want to see a show?
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-05-14
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Software Startup Brings Big Data Analysis To Theatre
“PatronLink360, offered on a software-as-a-service licensing model, aims to help theaters and producers boil down complex patron data into easily comprehensible nuggets of information, steering them toward customers with similar purchase patterns or toward a promising crossover demographic.”
How Our Use Of The Internet Is Increasingly Contributing To Global Warming
“Instead of buying a few videos and watching them again and again, we’re now binge-watching entire seasons of shows in a sitting, which ends up creating a bigger carbon footprint overall. This trend extends to other industries as well. For example, according to the report, publishers now consume more energy as a result of their data center usage than they did through their use of printing presses.”
A Big Step Forward In Mapping The Brain
“The Allen Cell Types Database, on its surface, doesn’t look like much. The first release includes information on just 240 neurons out of hundreds of thousands in the mouse visual cortex, with a focus on the electrophysiology of those individual cells: the electrical pulses that tell a neuron to fire, initiating a pattern of neural activation that results in perception and action. But understanding those single cells well enough to put them into larger categories will be crucial to understanding the brain as a whole—much like the periodic table was necessary to establish basic chemical principles.”
National Theatre Wales Founder Leaving To Direct Manchester International Festival
“The biennial event specialises in staging premieres by international cultural figures. This year’s festival, which takes place in July, will feature the likes of singer Bjork, artist Gerhard Richter and children’s TV star Justin Fletcher. Mr McGrath will take over from the festival’s founding artistic director Alex Poots, who is leaving to run New York’s new Culture Shed.”
Greece Says It Won’t Sue To Get Back Parthenon Marbles
Greek Culture Minister Nikos Xydakis on Wednesday said Athens would not seek court action against the museum but preferred a “diplomatic route.”