James McQuaid looks at four assumptions arts organizations tend to make that, all too often, simply don’t hold up.
EU Culture Commissioner Rejected By European Parliament
“A European Parliament committee voted on Monday to reject the nomination of Hungarian Tibor Navracsics as education and culture commissioner.” The legislators found that he was qualified for the post, but objected to his former role as justice minister in the controversial right-wing government of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban.
The Mad, Misunderstood Marquis: Why Does Sade Still Have A Hold On Us?
“He is everywhere, and still he scares us. Why? Because with Sade, no cold or objective analysis is possible; the body is implicated as much as the mind, and reason has to be subordinated to deeper, scarier impulses.”
What If Montaigne Wasn’t The Man Who Invented The Essay?
John Jeremiah Sullivan suggests that the form might just have, literally, a royal pedigree.
For Scotland’s National Trust, It’s Overhaul Or Financial Meltdown
The country’s largest historic preservation group will have to spend many millions over the next decade for maintenance and restoration of its properties, which include castles, battlefields, and even a few islands.
London’s National Theatre Earns Record £100 Million
“The National Theatre generated record-breaking income of £99.9 million in 2013/14, with ticket sales from NT Live screenings to cinemas at home and abroad increasing 179% from £2.4 million in 2012/13 to £6.7 million.”
Study: Our Experiences Get More Intense When We Share Them
“Lives unfold socially, but often silently,” the researchers write. “Yet even in silence, people often share experiences, and the mental space inhabited together is a place where good experiences get better, and bad experiences get worse.”
Nobel Literature Prize 2014: The Bookies’ Favorites Are –
“Ladbrokes, which has frequently seen the eventual victor surge to the top of its odds in the days before the announcement, said today that Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Haruki Murakami were, at 4/1, joint favourites to win Thursday’s eight million kronor (£693,000) prize.”
“Twin Peaks” Is Coming Back To TV
“The nine-episode series will go into production in 2015 for a premiere in 2016 [on Showtime] to mark the 25th anniversary of when the series finished its run on ABC. In a fact that will delight Twin Peaks devotees, Lynch and Frost will write and produce all nine episodes, with Lynch set to direct every episode.”
“Twin Peaks” Made Today’s Prestige-TV Landscape Possible
“The arty, boundary-breaking drama as we now know it wouldn’t exist without Twin Peaks … Everything from The Sopranos to American Horror Story owes it a debt. … And yet, as incredible as it now seems, there was a time when ABC was thought reckless, indulgent, or just plain stupid for giving Twin Peaks a green light.”
Geoffrey Holder, 84, Director, Actor, Painter, Dancer and Choreographer
“The 6-foot-6 Mr. Holder gained early renown as a dancer, leading a folk-dance troupe in his native Trinidad before moving to New York in the 1950s. He soon became a fixture in the city’s theatrical and artistic worlds, known for his rich, Caribbean-accented voice and the almost limitless range of his cultural interests.” He became a genuine celebrity thanks to a series of commercials for 7Up, “the Uncola”.
Twyla Tharp Named Artist-In-Residence At New York’s Joyce Theater
“In addition to a free rehearsal studio, administrative space, office services and an annual salary with benefits, the residency will allow Ms. Tharp a first in her 50-year choreography career: her own school.”
Met Museum Rescues Ancient Egyptian Collection From Auctioneer’s Bench
“The Metropolitan Museum of Art played the role of deus ex machina late last week, agreeing to purchase a trove of Egyptian antiquities that were about to go on the block at Bonhams in London, consigned by a St. Louis archaeological society. Archaeologists and historians alike had assailed the auction, fearing that the nearly 4,000-year-old artifacts would disappear into the hands of private collectors.”
Robert Pinsky’s Poetry MOOC Gets 12,000 Students
The former U.S. Poet Laureate’s eight-week massive open online course, “The Art of Poetry”, began last week. It’s free, but not easy: the syllabus says the work will be “demanding, and based on a certain kind of intense, exigent reading, requiring prolonged in fact, repeated attention to specific poems.”
Lots Of Cities Have Historic And Cultural Districts, But Who Else Has A Literary District?
Boston hopes that its newly-designated literary mecca – which features everything from the homes of Thoreau, the Jameses, and Plath to the hotel where Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh once worked to menu items like “Mel-Ville Chowder” and the “Poe-Boy Sandwich” (really?) – will “promote business and job growth and enhance property values in [its] own eclectic, well-educated way.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.06.14
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Protests Disrupt St. Louis Symphony Concert
“The orchestra and chorus were preparing to perform Johannes Brahms’ Requiem just after intermission when two audience members in the middle aisle on the main floor began singing an old civil rights tune, “Which Side are You on?” They soon were joined, in harmony, by other protesters, who stood at seats in various locations on the main floor and in the balcony.”
Russia’s Latest Refusenik Writer/Heroine (It’s Just Like Old Times)
“In recent years, as Russia has grown politically repressive and culturally conservative, [Lyudmila] Ulitskaya’s fiction, which addresses both religion and politics, has moved in for a confrontation. Increasingly, Ulitskaya has also become a public intellectual. … She has amassed many of Europe’s most prestigious literary prizes, even as she has come under attack at home.”
The New Yorker Discovers Barroom Shakespeare
Rebecca Mead visits the Three Day Hangover theatre company, founded last year, which performs “textually divergent interpretations” of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet” in crowded New York bars.