“I watch the Oscars memorial presentation and sit there going, Did him, did her, didn’t do that one. For obit writers, the whole world is necessarily divided into the dead and the pre-dead. That’s all there is.”
Amtrak’s First Writers In Residence
Amtrak has chosen its first class of 24 writers for its residency program. There were 16,000 applications. They’ll ride on long-distance trains and write about the experiences.
Joshua Bell To Try Busking In The D.C. Metro Again
But this time he’s doing it during lunchtime instead of morning rush hour, he’s announcing the place and date in advance, and there will be a video crew.
Using Mel Gibson Movies And Korean Soap Operas To Save Endangered Languages
A new project is using crowdsourced translation to provide subtitles for popular films and television programs in such tongues as Cherokee, Maori, and Basque.
A Troubled Orchestra In An Inexplicable Death Spiral
“You would think that in the midst of so much calamity in recent years Vallejo would want a symphony, would do whatever it could to have one, but sometimes the fact is that there’s just no place for a symphony in a particular town.”
Study: Average UK Theatre-Goer Spends £71 Per Visit
“The survey of 2,000 British theatregoers by Ebay-owned online ticket marketplace StubHub found that almost a third spent between £41 and £75 on their own ticket plus drinks to the last show they saw in the past year.”
Leading UK Theatres Say They Commit To Better Gender Balance
“Gender equality organisation Tonic Theatre analysed productions staged on September 13. This found that of the 24 productions staged across the top 20 theatres in receipt of the most Arts Council England core funding, women accounted for just 8% of writers, 37% of performers and 38% of directors. Women made up 17% of sound designers, 22% of lighting designers and 57% of set designers.”
Florence’s Museums Severely Damaged By Freak Hailstorms
“Freak weather events caused around €1.5m worth of damage to Florence’s institutions last week, including the Uffizi Galleries, which were evacuated and closed for the day.”
How Do You Build Arts Audiences?
Join the conversation: Building Arts Audiences – live panel discussion with Kurt Andersen, NEA chairman and national arts leaders. Oct. 1 at 3pm est. #buildingartsaudiences
What Riccardo Muti’s Resignation From Rome Opera Says About The Current State Of Italian Culture
In his resignation letter he declared that he was leaving “with great regret, and after long and tormented reflection”. Responding in a public statement, the theatre’s general manager Carlo Fuortes and the mayor of Rome, Ignazio Marino, said that Muti was “undoubtedly influenced” by “continual protests, internal conflicts and strikes that have lasted months”.
Where Are Our Mormon Composers?
“Until fairly recently, the Mormon composers who were known as such weren’t, frankly, all that known outside of Mormon circles. Conversely, those who were more well-known as composers weren’t readily identified with their native religion.”
Alberta Ballet Finds Itself Hobbled By New Canadian Work Visa Rules
“Alberta Ballet executive director Martin Bragg said in an interview … that the company, which employs 34 dancers full time, is the collateral damage of the program that allows citizens of other countries to work in Canada for specified periods of time in certain industries.”
The Problems With Cross-Gender Casting In Shakespeare
“The two best justifications for the practice are a relative shortage of major roles for women and a desire to freshen up overfamiliar texts.” Yet, argues Mark Lawson, cross-casting sets carefully wrought father-daughter and mother-son relationships (Prospero and Miranda, Lear, Hamlet and Gertrude) awry, and “if the governing aim of a production is to make the play seem different, perhaps those involved ought to be doing a different play.”
You Know What’s Wrong With Grammar Nazis?
“[They] are incurious about the logic and history of the English language and … have a tin ear for its nuances of meaning and emphasis. Too lazy to crack open a dictionary, they are led by gut feeling and intuition rather than attention to careful scholarship. … In their zeal to purify usage and safeguard the language, they have made it difficult to think clearly about felicity in expression and have muddied the task of explaining the art of writing.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 09.23.14
Do Artists Embrace or Resist Technology?
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-09-23
ArtPrize Matures: The People Vs. Experts
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-09-24
Even if…
AJBlog: Sandow | Published 2014-09-23
Autumn Comes
AJBlog: RiffTides | Published 2014-09-23
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Protests Over “Death Of Klinghoffer” At Met Opera Opening Night (They Weren’t “Massive”, Exactly)
“Several hundred protesters gathered outside the Met before the performance of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro for a noisy demonstration calling for the company to cancel its production of John Adams’s 1991 opera, The Death of Klinghoffer, which is to have its Met premiere next month.”
Alastair Reid, 88, Poet, Essayist, Translator
“In his poetry, he was perhaps best known for his anthologised poem ‘Scotland’, which concludes ‘We’ll pay for it, we’ll pay for it, we’ll pay for it!’ and he was renowned as a fine essayist” who wrote for The New Yorker for 40 years.