“There are people in the world – otherwise sensible people – who continue to think that the purpose of public art is to make people happy. … [Yet] the purest pleasure excited by a newly announced work of public art is invariably to be found in the breast of the person who cannot stand it. Take Sydney, which has been yelling at itself all week over … plans to install a 50-metre-high undulating arch of stainless steel fettucine right over the road outside Town Hall.”
Osipova And Vasiliev: Ballet’s Golden Ballet Couple Goes Contemporary
“Ever since Osipova and Vasiliev left the Bolshoi in 2011 they’ve been on a quest for new dance experiences, and while each has found a wider classical repertory in other companies (Osipova recently joining the Royal Ballet), they’ve been hungry to experiment with contemporary dance.”
What Would Krishna Do? Or Shiva? Or Vishnu?
Philosophers Gary Gutting and Jonardon Ganeri explore how Hinduism’s polytheism – from the point of view of us Abrahamic religion types – changes just about everything about its approaches to ethics as well as spirituality.
Sacramento Philharmonic And Opera Cancel Fall Season
“The decision follows months of financial uncertainty for the Sacramento Region Performing Arts Alliance, the organization formed last year when the philharmonic merged with the Sacramento Opera. … It remains unclear whether its musicians will return to the stage in the spring of 2015.”
Let’s Just Be Blunt About Theatre’s Massive Class Divide
“This play, this theatre, this audience will never make it into a national study about ‘diversity in theatre.’ Their productions, audience, playwrights, existence are not considered important enough to include because of the size of their budget. Their work, like the work of indie theatres all over the country, is invisible. But those audiences are having an intense, emotional, moving, unique, life-changing theatre experience. It’s not happening in New York, and it’s not happening in a 20 million dollar a year LORT, but it IS happening.”
Spike Jonze Makes Amazing Movies – In The Editing Bay
“He said 2013’s Her — which tells the story of a man (Joaquin Phoenix) who forms a relationship with his OS, Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) — gave him and co-editor Jeff Buchanan plenty of opportunity to ‘rewrite’ in the cutting room since the audience never sees Samantha. ‘It was like getting to re-shoot a character in a movie as many times as you’d like,’ he said.”
Why Can’t You See That Famous Painting? Your Museum Rented It
“The practice has seen such MFA masterpieces as Monet’s ‘Grainstack,’ Van Gogh’s ‘Postman Joseph Roulin,’ and Degas’s ‘Edmondo and Therese Morbilli’ sent to fee-paying museums in Japan, to the Bellagio hotel and casino in Las Vegas, and to shows in northern Italy organized by Linea d’Ombra, a profit-making company that organizes blockbuster exhibitions.”
What’s The Hold-up With The Eisenhower Memorial, Congress Wants To Know
“The congressional salvo is only the latest hurdle for a project that has been plagued by delays, even as the servicemen and women who served under Eisenhower during World War II are rapidly dying.”
Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony
“Beethoven really liberated the cello. In most classical symphonies the cellos are just sawing along with the basses, and Beethoven, more and more, gave them independent parts.”
That Time Werner Herzog Got Punk’d By Mel Brooks
“If you gaze into Werner Herzog talking about Werner Herzog for long enough, does Werner Herzog gaze back into you?”
A Dance Festival In Thin Air Provides Extra Delights
“During the performance, skies cleared completely. On the return afterward, hundreds of dancegoers took the same softly lighted river path as I did back to town; we could look up through the pines to thousands of stars, unusually large. No urban opera house can match such accompanying marvels.”
If You Owned A Strad, You’d Totally Loan It To A Gifted Teenager, Right?
“To me, the Strad is not just a violin, but is an extension of myself, allowing me to communicate all my musical ideas.”
The Liberal Arts Desperately Need A Defense – And Are Worth Defending
“If left to our own devices we academics might become more and more out of touch with what the society really needs. That tradition of criticizing elitists, criticizing the kind of snobbery that often goes with elite education, that’s I think a very healthy American tradition for good, democratic reasons.”
Canada Honors WWI Dead With A Vivid, Mobile Memorial
“From 2014 to 2018, the soldiers’ names will be projected on public buildings and in schools. Each name will be shown for 25 seconds in participating countries, online and on mobile devices.”
Diana Gibson, A Mercurial Impresario Of L.A.’s Theatre World, Dies At 69
“Convinced that most cultural output was dross, Gibson was on a mission to battle mediocrity. ‘She used to say, “We’re on the front lines,”‘ the playwright recalled. ‘But she put terror in almost everyone who met her.'”
Top AJBlogs Posts From 08.03.14
Enter, Pursued by History
AJBlog: Dancebeat | Published 2014-08-03
Most scurrilous, unfunny New Yorker “humor” re jazz
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz | Published 2014-08-02
Silicon Valley’s New Robber Barons
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-08-01
Marvel President: We Should *Totally* Make A Female-Led Superhero Movie! Sometime! In The, Like, Future!
“Despite his firm belief that Marvel Studios, which he runs, should make a female-led action movie, it has no public plans to do so in the future. (And Marvel has release dates planned through 2017.)”
What’s Life Like For The Most Famous Art Forger Ever?
“The only way I had of making money inside was doing prison portraits; I charged two phone cards for one pencil drawing, which was good money.”
The L.A. Phil’s Sober, Dancing Cellist
“The cello and baseball were my two loves. I was a catcher,” said L.A. Phil principal cellist Robert deMaine. But when he was a teen, he “quit the cello for a number of months, preferring ‘to grow my hair long and play in a band.'”
Jane Austen Is A Big Business Now, But What Were Her Own Business Ideals?
“Despite her family’s best efforts to represent her as a talented amateur after her death, the fact was that she was up at her desk as early as Marianne, writing and revising early in the morning.”
How Music For Dance Is Different From Music For Music
“One of the most important skills for dance conductors is the ability to keep a steady tempo without becoming inexpressive or mechanical. They can’t rely on spontaneous rubatos or accelerations to create excitement or pathos. (It would throw off the dancers.)”