The progenitor of this novel, its faux leather back cover attests in urine-yellow type (a hue and liquid one finds in the narrative as well), “is an independent author of idiosyncratic fiction. His work has been published under multiple pseudonyms. Including this one.” Adrian Jones Pearson. He is on Facebook, of course.
London’s Oldest Music Hall Reopens After £4M Restoration
The long-forgotten Wilton’s Music Hall first returned to our attention – still in a very derelict state – in 1997 with the celebrated Deborah Warner-Fiona Shaw staging of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. Other stagings in the venue followed over the years – as did a capital campaign. Now Wilton’s is ready for full-time use – still looking worn, but with up-to-date theatre infrastructure.
New Music Gets Its Own Mini-Carnegie Hall – In Brooklyn, Of Course
“There’s nothing else quite like it in New York. Establishment venues like Zankel Hall have welcomed composers, the 28-year-old organization Bang on a Can has colonized virtually every concert space in the city, and (Le) Poisson Rouge has found a winning combination of eclectic programming, casual atmosphere, and poor acoustics. But new music has never had its own miniature Carnegie Hall, a space explicitly designed for musical experimentation.”
Some People Are Afraid Of Where Technology Is Taking Us. Shouldn’t We Listen?
“Today’s Luddites are scared that technology will reveal that humans are no different from technology—that it will eliminate what it means to be human. And frankly, I don’t blame them. Humanity has had such a particular and privileged conception of itself for so long that altering it, as technology must inevitably do, will indeed change the very nature of who we are.”
How’s The Metropolitan Opera Doing? The Season’s First Week Gives Some Clues
These revivals, as much as the new “Otello,” may shed light on artistic and financial challenges the Met has been grappling with in recent years under its general manager, Peter Gelb. Whither the Met? Look to that opening week.
When White Poets Pretend To Be Asian
Hua Hsu on the Yi-Fen Chou/Best American Poetry affair (which he calls “Orientalist profiteering”): “It makes a mockery of whatever ‘life story of a Chinese American poet’ the name Chou might have stood in for. It ridicules the ambient self-doubt that trails most people from the margins who enter into spaces where they were never encouraged to belong. As though it were all just a game, meant to be gamed.”
Billie Holiday To Sing At The Apollo This Fall – As A Hologram
“The Apollo has partnered with Hologram USA to bring extended, permanent hologram technology to the theater. Ms. Holiday, who performed at the Apollo in the flesh nearly 30 times, will be the first, and is scheduled to debut around Thanksgiving.”
Don’t Make Fun Of Luddites – They Have A Point
“We shouldn’t automatically dismiss [the Luddite impulse] as one that scapegoats technology for society’s ills or pines for a simpler past free of irritating gadgets. Rather, today’s Luddites are scared that technology will reveal that humans are no different from technology – that it will eliminate what it means to be human. And frankly, I don’t blame them.”
Bard College Starts Up New World Symphony-Style Postgrad Orchestra
The ensemble, called The Orchestra Now, provides free tuition, health benefits, and a $24,000 annual stipend. This year TON will be performing at Bard, Carnegie Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and plans to give free concerts in New York City’s outer boroughs and East Village.
Trisha Brown Dance Company Partners With Bard College
“As part of the relationship, which begins this month, Bard will have rights to rehearse and perform selections from Ms. Brown’s repertory. … Artists from the troupe will embed in the faculty, teaching classes and shaping the school’s course offerings to reflect … not so much Ms. Brown’s technique as her way of thinking.”
When Did Crying Become Unmanly? It Didn’t Use To Be …
“Historical and literary evidence suggests that, in the past, not only did men cry in public, but no one saw it as feminine or shameful. In fact, male weeping was regarded as normal in almost every part of the world for most of recorded history. … So where did all the male tears go? The truth is, we don’t know for certain. There was no anti-crying movement.”
Minnesota School District Returns Books Because Of Cultural Stereotypes
The district paid Reading Horizons $1.2 million for a new reading curriculum for kindergarten through third grade. When teachers got the books, they found an illustration of an American Indian girl titled “Nieko the Hunting Girl,” and another with a black girl called “Lazy Lucy.” The books also referenced Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America, a historical milestone no longer taught in many schools.
What Might It Take To Change Hollywood’s Persistent Sexism?
“Is this fall’s crop an exception or a possible sign of a shift afoot? Certainly there are no major films built around women of color on the horizon. So we asked actresses, writers and directors (including a few men) from forthcoming films about what’s changed, what needs to change and how. They didn’t always agree, and the subject won’t be settled anytime soon.”
At Least Someone’s Getting Rich Off The Music Industry…
“BMI, one of the two big agencies in the United States that handle the licensing when songs are played on the radio or streamed online, plans to announce on Thursday that it exceeded $1 billion in annual revenue for the first time, led by rapid growth in digital music.”
Troubled National Geographic Sells Its Magazine To Rupert Murdoch’s Fox
“In exchange for $725 million, the National Geographic Society passed the troubled magazine and its book, map and other media assets to a partnership headed by 21st Century Fox, the Murdoch-controlled company that owns the 20th Century Fox movie studio, the Fox television network and Fox News Channel.”
Bestselling Author Commits Suicide One Day Before Release Of New Book
The death of Dutch novelist and columnist Joost Zwagerman, 51, “emerged on Tuesday evening when he failed to turn up for a radio interview to talk about his new book De stilte van het licht (The Silence of Light). Much of the music he had chosen for the programme was about death.”
Boston Symphony’s New Music Director Takes A Second Post – At Leipzig’s Gewandhaus
“Mr. Nelsons, 36, will continue to lead the Boston Symphony, which recently extended his contract through at least 2022, after he begins his five-year contract at the Gewandhaus Orchestra in the fall of 2017. … Boston and Leipzig are working to make a virtue of Mr. Nelsons’s involvement with both orchestras. The Boston Symphony will perform in Leipzig, and the Gewandhaus Orchestra will perform at Symphony Hall in Boston. They are starting a joint commissioning program that will begin in the 2017-18 season.”
Jerry Saltz On How Picasso the Sculptor Ruptured Art History
“We don’t think of Picasso as a sculptor, but we should. He was a great one. In the years after that summer with Braque, Picasso performed a vivisection of 500 years of Western spatial perspective.”
Theater Troupe Creates Portable, Pop-Up Playgrounds In World’s Highest City
In El Alto, the young and fast-growing city high above the Bolivian capital, La Paz, the group COMPA Teatro Trono sets up colorful, temporary places for children and adults in a city desperately short of public recreational space.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 09.09.15
Artcentric Engagement
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-09-09
MoMA’s ‘Picasso Sculpture’ Blunder: Mr. Lowry, Put Up Those Labels!
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-09-09
Summer Museum Sightings, Part 2: Thematic Cooperation
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-09-09
23,226 days 11 hours, 23 minutes and counting: Long Live the Queen!
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2015-09-09
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