“We’re creating a world of dummies. Angry dummies who feel they have the right, the authority and the need not only to comment on everything, but to make sure their voice is heard above the rest, and to drag down any opposing views through personal attacks, loud repetition and confrontation.”
Giant Bust Of Nefertiti Taken Down After Relentless Mockery
Tweeted one wag, “I guess this is what she looked like four days after she died.”
Chouette! Fantastisch! Bravo! Translators Now Eligible For Man Booker Prize
“‘A poor translation will kill even the most beautifully written, imaginative book,’ said Fiammetta Rocco, administrator of the prize.”
How Haiti’s Disasters (And History) Created A New Musical Legacy
“The roots of electronic rabòday can be found in rara, a music older than Haiti itself. It began with the indigenous Taíno people, mixed with rhythms brought from Africa by slaves, and eventually morphed and modernized into a style that today is played by roving musicians throughout the country.”
Man Booker International And Independent Foreign Fiction Prizes Merge To Create Super-Award
Instead of being biennial, it will be annual. And instead of rewarding a body of work, it will be awarded on the basis of a single book translated into English and published in the UK. Novels and short story collections will be eligible. The prize money will also be increased with a top prize of £50,000.
Jacob’s Pillow Director Leaves For New-Created Position At Mellon Foundation
Ella Baff has been at Jacob’s Pillow, which is home to America’s longest-running dance festival, for 17 years. In a statement, Mark Leavitt, the board chairman at Jacob’s Pillow, wished Baff well. “The Mellon Foundation is an important institution that has been a longtime supporter of the arts and some of the Pillow’s most successful programs,” he said.
The Essential Ingredient For A Successful Lit Magazine
“You can use several different measuring sticks to say whether a litmag “succeeds”: longevity, financial stability, influence on new writers, number of readers, number of imitators launching journals very much like your own. But all these kinds of success come down to whether your journal brings something new to its scene.”
Why Do Movies About Musicians Focus So Little Attention On The Music?
“Music-focused cinema could provide something radical: a close view of the processes of composing and performing that reveals the work behind what seems, to listeners, like magic. Instead, like almost any other kind of cinema, it tends to focus on human relationships: on the interpersonal, not the inner personal.”
How Much Does Your Family’s Wealth Influence What You Study In College?
“With average earnings for different types of degrees as well-publicized as they are—the difference in lifetime earnings among majors can be more than $3 million, one widely covered study found—it’s not hard to imagine a student deciding his or her academic path based on its expected payout. And it’s especially not hard to imagine poorer kids making this calculation out of necessity, while richer kids forgo that means-to-an-end thinking.”
Star-Is-Born Moment: Soprano Triumphs As Violetta At Covent Garden After Only Five Hours’ Notice
Ekaterina Bakanova was already in the house rehearsing her upcoming debut (as Musetta) and she’d been planning to attend Traviata that night anyway. Then her colleague Sonya Yoncheva became ill.
We Have Discovered The Owner Of William Carlos Williams’s Red Wheelbarrow
“For decades, much has depended on his red wheelbarrow, streaked with rain, next to some white chickens, even if no one has known – or perhaps even wondered – exactly who he was.” Now, at last, poetic justice can be done.
Boston’s Museum Of Fine Arts Cancels “Kimono Wednesdays” After Protests
The museum said it had hoped to create an “interactive experience,” helping museum goers appreciate the rich details, embroidery and fine materials of the garments. It said similar events took place when the painting, depicting a woman in a kimono, travelled throughout Japan for an exhibition. But protesters have held signs at the Boston museum’s events, calling them “racist” and “imperialist.”
Why Steven Soderbergh Quit Making Movies
“The bottom line when people talk about all the reasons, you know the biggest reason? It stopped being fun. It just stopped being fun. It really wasn’t. That’s a big deal to me. It may sound like “Why do you have to have fun to go to work?” I don’t know. I like to be in a good mood. The ratio of bullshit to the fun part of doing the work was really starting to get out of whack.”
Alex Ross Checks Out Apple Music
“No heads will roll in Cupertino on account of these grumblings. The majority of the population that ignores classical music will shrug and go back to the new Jamie xx record. (I’m enjoying his track ‘The Rest Is Noise.’) Yet Apple’s unwillingness to accommodate – in this first iteration, at least – defining features of a thousand-year tradition is symptomatic of general trends in the streaming business.”
L.A. Is Not The Creative Shangri-La That The East-Coast Press Suddenly Thinks It Is
Carolina Miranda: “I feel as if we, in the cultural classes, have been perfectly happy to get caught up in the mythology that L.A. is somehow a Xanadu of art-making. Certainly, there are worse places to be an artist. (Brooklyn comes to mind.) But let’s get real about the situation here in Los Angeles.”
Why Is It Getting Harder And Harder To Fall Asleep?
“We are, as a population, sleeping less now than we ever have. The problem, on the whole, isn’t that we’re waking up earlier. Much of the change has to do with when we choose to go to bed – and with how we decide to do so.”
Aeschylus Addresses Europe’s Boat-People Crisis
As desperate refugees fleeing African and Middle Eastern war zones drown in the Mediterranean and flood Italy, Greece, and Malta, a director uses Syracuse’s ancient Greek amphitheater to stage The Suppliants, about a much earlier group of Egyptians seeking asylum.
Four Ways Women Get A Raw Deal In Hollywood: A Female Producer Explains
Mynette Louie: “I spoke to some of those filmmakers to get a better sense of the forms of discrimination they typically face; these four examples were the ones most commonly cited.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.07.15
Values and What We Do
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-07-07
Milking Time Milked: Delaware Museum’s Failed Deaccession Gambit
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-07-07
Monday Recommendation: Sam Most
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-07-06
Lookback: on the solitude of the out-of-town singleton
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-07-07
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Classic Hollywood Producer Jerry Weintraub, 77
“The Brooklyn-born son of a Bronx jeweler, Weintraub rose from the mailroom of a talent agency to become a top concert promoter before shifting into a decades-long career as a top Hollywood producer. Along the way, Weintraub worked with the most famous of stars — Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, George Clooney, Brad Pitt — and was a close friend of former President George H.W. Bush. He relished his insider status, just as they savored the stories that eagerly poured out of him.”