Manierre Dawson, “although not a household name, is increasingly recognized as the first American artist to work in a completely abstract mode. … He made his breakthrough to non-objective imagery prior to any exposure to modernist art. Instead, his innovation stemmed from his training and employment as a structural engineer.”
Kerouac’s ‘On The Road’ – A Masterpiece Or A Mess? And Is It Just A Guy Thing?
“Jonathon Menjivar read On the Road as a teenager and, like so many American teens, was completely infatuated by it. His wife, fellow radio producer Hillary Frank, had never read it. They decided to read it together … Menjivar desperately wants her to see what he saw in it as a kid.” She doesn’t. (audio)
Why ‘The Act Of Killing’ Director Made A Second Documentary – With A Survivor Of The Mass Murders Confronting The Murderers
Joshua Oppenheimer (The Look of Silence): “Imagine you have to go to weddings and funerals and socialize politely with people who murdered your children because you’re too afraid to actually speak out and confront them. That takes a tremendous toll on our humanity.” (video interview and film clip)
There’s No Such Thing As A Psychopath
“Unlike discrete psychological disorders such as schizophrenia or depression, psychopathy is a disorder sustained by rhetoric rather than by science – ‘psychopath’ is just a strong word for a deviant, in the same way that ‘jerk’ describes someone you don’t like but reveals little about that person’s psychology.”
How Did The Middle Ages Get Such A Bum Rap As A Dark Ignorant Time? Unfair!
“Unfair because it has been found again and again that our skills, laws, liberties, nations, and languages are the result of hard work in the millennium reputed dark, unlit by reason, and recessive from the sunshine of the classical civilizations, when perfectly formed philosophers sat debating in public colonnades, monk-free.”
‘Phantom Of The Opera’ Gets A Dark, Gritty Revamp (No More Staircase!)
Producer Cameron Mackintosh: “We wanted to get into the grit of the opera house and the lair and make it far more atmospheric, in a stylized realistic way. … It’s a much more visceral show … more a musical play – a gothic musical play.”
Who’s Really Been Making The Decisions About ‘Go Set A Watchman’, And Why?
The enormously anticipated book is, after all, one that Harper Lee had refused for decades to publish (at least to the extent that she even remembered its existence as a distinct work). Claire Suddath traveled to Monroeville, Alabama to investigate, and to meet Lee’s attorney and de facto manager, Tonja Carter.
Now They’re Gonna Make A Musical About The Woman Who Said, ‘Where’s The Beef?’
“Says Necheles, ‘This is a musical based on the exploration of what it means to be famous and how people react to that fame.’
Says Shell: ‘In essence it focuses on a person I believe to have been the first reality TV star, a regular person who became famous basically by being herself.'”
What Does A Dancer Do After A Career-Killing Injury? [VIDEO]
“Karine Newborn knew she wanted to be a professional dancer since watching her mother dance as a little girl in Paris. Her career as a dancer took a sharp turn though after suffering an injury while performing on Broadway. The single mother and dancer found herself unable to continue her career as a dancer, putting her in a financial bind.”
Patti LuPone Shouldn’t Have To Police Cell Phone Use In The Theatre
“Here’s what I’m wondering. Why haven’t theaters, which have known about this problem for eons, taken a harder line on behalf of their own audiences and productions? Why, in all these years, hasn’t a deterrent been found? … At the point at which actors no longer feel they can do their jobs, management is required to step up.”
How The Arts Makes Better Healthcare
“Why does a hospital need a writer-in-residence? According to professors at HMS, studies show that engaging in artistic expression can help healthcare providers reduce burnout and foster empathy, and enhance their ability to communicate and connect with patients.”
Cincinnati Piano Competition Fires AD Awadagin Pratt
“Awadagin Pratt has been relieved of his position of artistic director of the Cincinnati World Piano Competition. The leadership shakeup also includes three board members – including the chairman – who have resigned.”
Online Art Criticism Isn’t Working. So What Should Replace It?
“In an economy where content is king, where digital marketplaces like Amazon promote writing (especially user-generated criticism, that holy grail of free content that instils value in a product without the company needing to pay or take responsibility for it), the role of criticism—to respond to the work—also includes responding to its marketplace and the way the market regulates what viewers are exposed to, even online.”
Mark Rylance: Subsidized UK Theatres (The National and Royal Shakespeare) Are Charging Too Much For Tickets
You can’t have the RSC and the National receiving millions of pounds of money without a lower price, in my feeling. A lower price should be part of it.” Adding that tickets for the two subsidised theatre companies cost “way too much”, he continued: “I think it absolutely has to be accessible, this stuff. And that should be the condition of subsidy.”
Noticed You’re Not Getting As Much Spam Lately? Google’s New Neural Networks “Teach” Themselves To Filter
“Roughly speaking, these neural networks are vast collections of machines that mimic the networks of neurons in the brain. At Google, Jeff Dean and a core group of other AI engineers oversee these networks and provide software libraries that allow other Google teams, including the Gmail team, to use them.”
Greek Museums Forced To Close As Funding Runs Out
“Major public cultural institutions in Greece are on the point of collapse, say leading Greek art professionals, as concerns mount that the country faces insolvency after 61% of the population rejected bailout proposals earlier this week made by international creditors.”
Figure Skating On Wheels – At Championship Level
“In a land where winter sports rule, Kailah Macri’s double axels – on roller skates – haven’t exactly made her a household name.” (includes video)
Patti LuPone Confiscates Audience Member’s Cell Phone Mid-Performance
See? It’s not just music critics doing it. “It’s a lesson that audiences have yet to learn. … Patti LuPone will not tolerate your foolery in a Broadway theatre. Or off-Broadway. Or in a Las Vegas concert hall.”
Meet The Guy Who Tried To Charge His Phone On A Broadway Stage Set
“He said the incident was not a dare. It was not intended as a joke. His iPhone 6 was just low on juice. Why did he do it? What was the emergency? ‘Girls were calling all day. What would you do?'”
We’re The Walking Dead: Most Of Us Are Sleep-Deprived Much Of The Time
Think you’re okay on five or six hours a night? Don’t be so sure. Not only does lack of sufficient sleep impair us cognitively, but we’re also bad at telling when we’re impaired.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.09.15
Fun And Games In Art Museums
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-07-09
Organization Spotlight: Springboard for the Arts
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-07-09
Values: A Part of the Everyday
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-07-09
Core Values & Cupcakes
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-07-09
Marginal Thinking & Our Personal Boundaries
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-07-09
Eddie Louiss, 1941-2015
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-07-09
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Fighting Islamophobia With Subway Ads, Hugs, A Movie, And A Comedy Festival
“Comedy has long been used by outsiders to ease the worries of a distrustful society, and Muslim stand-up comedians in New York are no different. A coming three-day comedy festival will spotlight their perspective, but their recent efforts to counter Islamophobia through humor have had mixed results.”
The Harsh Reality Of America’s Higher Education System
“In our current system the relation between vulnerability and support is an inverse one. One result is that graduation rates are the same for low-income students with high test scores as for high-income students with low scores.7 In the United States today, three of every five children from families in the top income quartile earn a bachelor’s degree by age twenty-four, while for those in the bottom quartile the rate is one in four.”