The idea of Oscar Wilde meeting Walt Whitman face-to-face began as a publicity stunt for Wilde’s 1882 U.S. lecture tour. (The two were to ride together in an open carriage through the streets of Philadelphia. It was January and Whitman declined.) In fact, Wilde’s mother had read Leaves of Grass (in an unexpurgated version) to him when he was 11, and he had admired Whitman ever since, and he eventually went to visit his old hero at home. “No reporters were invited to witness the meeting between Whitman and Wilde. This was a strange choice for two dandyish men who loved self-promotion, but it was a canny one: they would each give separate interviews afterwards, and double the attention they received.”
How Finland Remade Itself As A Literary Country
Around the time of the global recession, the Finns set out as a nation to find the “next Nokia.” It was all we talked about. In a small socially democratic nation like ours, where so much is shared, we felt a common responsibility over our exports. Anything and everything could be the next Nokia, we said, so long as we figure out how to brand it. Tech start-ups were the obvious choice, but cultural products emerged as a strong contender. Could we sell even more great design? Leverage our architecture? Finnish heavy metal started to do well in Germany and the Anglo American world. Then something decisive happened in Finnish literature.
The Me Too Moment Of Photojournalism
Wow: “Photojournalists described behavior from editors and colleagues that ranged from assault to unwanted advances to comments on their appearance or bodies when they were trying to work. And now, as the #MeToo moment has prompted change across a range of industries—from Hollywood to broadcasting to the arts—photojournalists are calling for their own moment of reckoning.”
Donald Trump, The Opera?
Donald Trump is the undisputed hero of this comic opera in three acts. “Comic” does not here mean superficial or laugh-out-loud hilarious: as Rossini so superbly demonstrated in “The Barber of Seville”, comic opera combines a sophisticated analysis of human interactions with a light touch. Foreign policy offers plenty of opportunities to study human nature; at summits, each participant brings not only his or her personality but a country’s sensitivities, strengths and weaknesses to bear. Like Bartolo—the central character in “The Barber of Seville”, a buffoon-like doctor of medicine with ambitions that supersede his abilities—Mr Trump is sung by a bass.
What’s Lost When Great Private Art Collections Break Up
Noah Charney: “When the collections are dispersed, the art remains extant, but the story told by the collection dissipate. It is rather like an archaeological site — objects found within, undisturbed, tell a story based on their context. The same objects can tell their own, individual stories, but the tale of how they were gathered and arranged together can be lost if they are viewed outside of the find site, in museum vitrines.”
Musicals And Plays Adapted From Movies And Books Sell Almost Five Times As Many Tickets As Do Fully Original Scripts
According to a report from Britain’s Publishers Association using data from the industry group UK Theatre, “in 2016, adaptations took, on average, three-and-a-half times more at the box office and sold 4.8 times as many tickets as original productions. … A family musical based on a film attracts more than six times the revenue of an original show. Page-to-stage adaptations were also more successful than original productions, particularly when analysing plays.”
Wife Of Cliburn Winner Vadym Kholodenko Found Not Guilty By Reason Of Insanity Of Their Children’s Murder
“The verdict was handed down after a brief hearing in which the judge was read reports by three experts — including one retained by the prosecution — who agreed that [Sofya] Tsygankova was criminally insane when she killed her daughters [in March of 2016]. … The judge then ordered Tsygankova, now 34, committed to a state mental hospital.”
Why It’s Difficult To Tell Whether Things Are Getting Better Or Worse
Was the past good or bad? Are we on the right track or the wrong one? Is life getting better or worse? These questions are easy to ask—pollsters and politicians love asking them—but surprisingly hard to answer.
Stan Dragoti, Director Of ‘Love At First Bite’ And ‘Mr. Mom,’ Dead At 85
“A son of an Albanian immigrant, Dragoti came from the world of New York advertising. He made his Hollywood debut by writing and directing Dirty Little Billy (1972), a Western about the early years of the outlaw Billy the Kid (played by Michael J. Pollard). Dragoti then helmed Love at First Bite (1979), the great Dracula spoof starring George Hamilton as the Count, and got story credit on Mr. Mom. He directed that film, starring Michael Keaton and Teri Garr, from a screenplay by John Hughes.”
How An Isaac Asimov Sex Scene Changed My Life
Slate writer (and trans man) Evan Urquhart: “I knew [when I was 12 that] I preferred old-fashioned books by men for men (or adolescent boys), and I read these as if I were a native rather than a visitor to their world. This stood in contrast to the way I consumed girl culture: by trying to absorb and mimic the attitudes of straight girls … I was trying to play a part based on the adventures of the Sweet Valley Twins, but I could never get it exactly right. In The Robots of Dawn, the third entry in Asimov’s Robot series, I found something else.”
How Helen Keller Watched Martha Graham’s Company Dance
“Graham, always on the lookout for ways in which people use their bodies to make meaning of the air around them, observes that Keller ‘could not see the dance but was able to allow its vibrations to leave the floor and enter her body.’ … She has taught herself to pay attention using the vibrations around her and is still able to see and hear by following the directions of sound waves created by voices, bodies, and instruments.”
Producers Of Hit Podcast ‘S-Town’ Sued By Estate Of Main Subject
“According to plaintiff Craig Cargile, who filed on Thursday in Bibb County, Alabama, on behalf of [John B.] McLemore’s estate, [senior producer and host Brian] Reed, Serial Productions, This American Life, Chicago Public Media, and others allegedly used ‘McLemore’s indicia of identity in a commercial manner’ and seeks damages. Echoing concerns of some listeners, Cargile says McLemore never consented, nor would he have, to the podcast revealing or speculating on certain ‘mysteries’ of his private life.”
Indian Court Rules That Actors Can’t Be Held Liable For Their Scripted Dialogue (Yes, This Had To Be Ruled On)
India’s broad defamation laws allow complainants to file civil or even criminal charges for insulting the feelings of religious groups or communities as well as individuals. Repeated suits along these lines have been brought against the producers of the hit Netflix India series Sacred Games. In one of the latest, concerning an epithet a character uses to describe the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, “the Delhi High Court on Monday said actors cannot be held liable for the lines they read from a show’s script.” (The court also asked the complainant to demonstrate why his lawsuit was in the public interest at all.)
Christine Nöstlinger, 81, Prolific, Award-Winning Children’s Author
“[Her] more than 150 books — including works about an oppressive ‘cucumber king’ who lords over a cellar and a ‘factory-made boy’ who always goes to bed on time — earned her some of the highest honors in children’s literature, … sold millions of copies and were translated into 30 languages.”
Are Podcasts And Audio Books Converging?
I believe the way to think about this is to see all audio content providers — from the conventional podcasts of the open ecosystem to everything on Audible to whatever Anchor will become to Headspace plus whatever subscription-first audio platforms come over the horizon to the entire digital music ecosystem — as fighting from the same cochlear real estate.
As Arts Philanthropy Pivots To Addressing Social Issues, How Do Big, Lumbering Legacy Organizations Keep Up?
Mike Scutari considers the issues involved in general and looks at how one particular old behemoth, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is working with a charitable trust on a residency program for artists in such underserved New York communities as East Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant.
How Two Major Ballet Company Bosses Are Trying To Change The Culture Of Bullying And Passivity
Judith Mackrell talks about counteracting the powerful forces of discipline/submissiveness, competition, ego, and tradition with Royal Ballet artistic director Kevin O’Hare (“We had issues with one guest coming in recently who was behaving in ways that we aren’t used to any more”) and Scottish Ballet artistic director Christopher Hampson (“We have 40 dancers, and there are still about 15 who would rather I shouted at them and tell them what to do.”).
How Instagram Is Messing Up The Dance World’s Value System
Theresa Ruth Howard: “There are the … dance feeds that I find myself simultaneously intrigued and horrified by: the hyper-elastic, hyper-extended, gumby-footed girls always at the barre doing developpés to six o’clock. There are the multiple turners, the avid stretchers and we can’t forget the endless balancers. … This is a slippery slope. Surfing Instagram is like watching the virtue of dance as a high art deteriorate in real time. Who and what goes viral is a reflection of a newly-forming value system. With each ‘like’ and ‘follow,’ we vote on the future of our field.”
Toronto’s Largest Theatre Suspends Its Training Program Due To ‘Culture Change’
“As [the Soulpepper Theatre Company] reckons with a costly legal battle, a six-figure deficit and hiccups in government funding, the not-for-profit would seem to be besieged on several fronts.”
Today’s highlights from AJBlogs 07.16.18
- Communities Are Creative Our next entry comes from Micah Goldstein via new Creative Community Fellow Jane Wegscheider and is a great video about an annual event in their Western Massachusetts community. Jane writes: Micah Goldstein is an emerging videographer … read more
- Random facts about me that may surprise you I recently ran across a long-forgotten meme called “Random Facts About Yourself That May Surprise People” that I never got around to finishing or posting. I don’t know how surprising you’ll find the answers, much … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2018-07-16
MoviePass Stock Dives, Losing 26% Of Its Value
The issue has lost more than 98% of its value this year and has continued to decline in recent weeks in the wake of AMC’s launch on June 20 of a discount pricing program, allowing customers to see three movies a week for a $19.95 monthly fee. MoviePass has more than 3 million subscribers and allows customers the chance to see a movie a day for a monthly fee of $9.99. But Wall Street has been losing faith in whether MoviePass can survive by selling data about its customers and striking marketing partnerships.
Netflix Adds Only 600K Subscribers In Q2 And Its Stock Price Plunges
The company reported 670,000 streaming net adds domestically and 4.47 million internationally. Wall Street analysts expected 1.23 million net adds in the U.S. and 5.11 million overseas for the period (slightly higher that Netflix’s prior guidance).
“Boys In The Band” Becomes First Broadway Show Of This Season To Recoup Its Investment
Boys in the Band, a revival of Mart Crowley’s 1968 play about a group of New York gay men celebrating – or not – a birthday party, was, as usual, close to SRO, with paid attendance of 6,058 at 98% of capacity, for a total gross of $929,338, 97% of the $957K potential.
Is Economics Incompatible With Humanities?
Economics, Morson and Schapiro say, has three systematic biases: it ignores the role of culture, it ignores the fact that “to understand people one must tell stories about them,” and it constantly touches on ethical questions beyond its ken. Culture, stories, and ethics are things that can’t be reduced to equations, and economics accordingly has difficulty with them. Morson and Schapiro’s solution is to use the study of the humanities, and particularly of realist fiction, to broaden perspectives and to reintroduce to economics those three missing factors.