The producers of Madea on the Run, currently touring the U.S., have not signed Equity’s contract, so the union has put the show on its “Do Not Work” list, which SAG-AFTRA is honoring.
The Art Of Humorous Nonfiction: A Beer In Brooklyn With The King Of The A-Heds
“As a staff reporter at The Wall Street Journal, [Barry] Newman developed a niche as the ‘King of the A-Hed,’ the front page, below-the-fold feature story that had become one of journalism’s more peculiar corners since its inception in the 1940s. On a front page filled with the dryness of the bond market, the gravity of war casualties or the enduring egotism of Wall Street, the A-Hed was an homage to the ridiculousness of the world, a favorite among readers, reporters and editors, its existence constantly under threat.”
How LED Lights Are Changing Museums
“Recently, to reduce energy costs, art museums have been shifting to using energy-efficient LEDs. But the switch isn’t just about cost—it can make preserving paintings easier, too.”
Theaster Gates Has An Idea For A New Kind Of Arts Center (And He’s Building It In Chicago)
“This is a new kind of cultural amenity, a new kind of institution—a hybrid gallery, media archive and library, and community center. It is an institution of and for the South Side—a repository for African American culture and history, a laboratory for the next generation of black artists and culture-interested people; a platform to showcase future leaders—be they painters, educators, scholars, or curators.”
Unknown Tolkien Story Headed To Bookshelves
“There’s a new fantasy story from J.R.R. Tolkien set to be published later this fall: the author’s estate will be releasing The Story of Kullervo” in October, one of his earliest prose works that would eventually lead him to Middle Earth.”
What Matters Isn’t What Happened – It’s The Stories We Tell Ourselves About What Happened That Make Us Who We Are
“Though perhaps the facts of someone’s life, presented end to end, wouldn’t much resemble a narrative to the outside observer, the way people choose to tell the stories of their lives, to others and – crucially – to themselves, almost always does have a narrative arc. In telling the story of how you became who you are, and of who you’re on your way to becoming, the story itself becomes a part of who you are.”
When Harry Houdini Met Arthur Conan Doyle
“[They] were an improbable pair. One was very much the bluff Scottish Victorian gentleman, educated at a minor Catholic private school; the other a largely self-educated Hungarian immigrant to the US who had spent most of his life in rackety vaudeville. The two men were brought together by a shared interest in spiritualism, but it was also spiritualism that destroyed this unlikely friendship.”
Can Envy Be Good for You? (Definitely, Sometimes)
“Admiration is seen as a noble sentiment – we admire people for admiring others, detecting, in their admiration, a suggestion of taste and humility. Envy, by contrast, is thought to be inherently bad … Is that really the case? Or can something frustrating and painful lead, almost in spite of itself, to positive ends – to even better ends, perhaps, than its more admired counterpart? Not all envy, we are learning, is created equal.”
Think Online Stories Are Getting Shorter? Research Shows We’re Craving Long
“Contrary to mainstream thought that content is shrinking, the tide is actually moving away from 140 characters and ephemeral photos, and toward long-form specialty content. According to a report from BuzzSumo, long-form articles are shared more than short-form articles — based on the company’s analysis of more than 100 million articles over eight months. The study found that, on average, articles with 3,000 to 10,000 words had 8,500 shares, whereas content with 1,000 words or less averaged 4,500 shares.”
L.A. Phil Has An Exciting New – And Female – Associate Conductor
Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla – increasingly known as simply “Mirga” after rapturously received concerts at the Hollywood Bowl and Disney Hall this past season – was a Dudamel Fellow and assistant conductor at the Los Angeles Philharmonic; she’s now being promoted to associate conductor, effective next summer.
Where They’re Turning Old Railroad Tunnels Into A Permanent Performance Space
“Railway tunnels in Bristol that date back 175 years are to be transformed into a new performance space. The underground venue, which will be called the Lo-co Klub, is located in the arches beneath Bristol’s Temple Meads station, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in the 1840s.”
What Do We Mean When We Ask What Something Is Like?
Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk with lexicographer Anne Seaton about the strange history of this strange expression. (podcast)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 08.10.15
Ai Weiwei Watch: International Travel Plans, Sympathy for His Tormentors
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-08-10
The Reign of the Director
AJBlog: OperaSleuth Published 2015-08-10
Just because: Miles Davis improvises a film score
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-08-10
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What If You Don’t Want Your New Musical Theatre Singers To Sound Like Idina Menzel?
“Vocal training for classical music and vocal training for musical theater need different foci, to an extent. Each requires meticulous attention to a separate set of performance traditions.”
When Romance Goes Massively Wrong
“A romantic novel in which a ‘blonde and blue-eyed Jewess’ falls in love with an SS-Kommandant in Theresienstadt concentration camp has caused outrage and offence in the romance writing community after it was shortlisted for two top awards.”
Shakespeare’s Pipes Test Positive For Cannabis (Seriously)
“The pipes from Shakespeare’s garden might have been used to smoke pot, but they tested negative for cocaine, which was also consumed by some in the playwright’s era. ‘Shakespeare may have been aware of the deleterious effects of cocaine as a strange compound,’ Thackeray writes. ‘Possibly, he preferred cannabis as a weed with mind-stimulating properties.'”
Are The UK’s Hordes Of Closed Nightclubs An Indicator Of The State Of Music And Dance In The Country?
“With the advent of later pub opening hours, the smoking ban, student tuition fees and the squeeze that a lot people are under financially since the recession … I think people are finding different ways and different places to go out.”
Blurred Lines: The Battles Over Free Speech, Hate Speech, And Online Shaming
Kelefa Sanneh: “We live in a world, evidently, where a college-town d.j. who plays a popular song can inspire a Facebook protest that will eventually cost him his gig. But we also live in a world where an undergraduate who protests at her local bar can find herself vilified around the world … And it’s not obvious that the first development should trouble us more than the second.”