“I watched slack-jawed in horror as they threw one of the 20th century’s most iconic fictional heroes, Atticus Finch, under the bus.” (audio with transcript)
Someone Plants An Ax In The Forehead Of A Christopher Columbus Bust In Detroit
The statue, located at Jefferson and Randolph right next to city hall, was splashed with fake blood, and a hatchet was taped to his forehead as if it had just been struck.
Making Vegetable Soup Becomes Theatre
“During a performance that begins as a monologue, and which slowly and organically develops into a conversation, we all make a vegetarian soup together: cutting vegetables and garlic – lots and lots of garlic – and gradually turning up the heat so that the smells fill the room like memory itself.”
What’s Really Killing Music In Our Culture
“Those who care about the future of the music business ought to spend less time complaining about digital disruptions and expend more energy lifting up the public’s awareness of serious music, because we truly do devalue music when we reduce our most impactful art form to an artifact of celebrity and a lifestyle choice. Complex instrumental music has become marginalized to within an inch of its very existence, and that has a lot to do with industry folk defining “value” in only the way that affects their mailbox money.”
Carnegie Hall’s Internal Struggles Come Out In A Bad Week
“Carnegie Hall cannot exist without large private donations, gratefully received. But it is primarily a nonprofit institution and a public trust, not a billionaire’s plaything, and preferences on programming can only be discussed between board and staff in the most general of conversations.”
The Man Who Sells Books From His NY Apartment
Michael Seidenberg’s approach to business is mostly as a transaction between bibliophiles. Some books he will only sell if he detects true enthusiasm from the buyer. “I’m a slow bookseller,” said Seidenberg. “I have a huge relationship to my stock.”
Hating Renoir Is Just A Phase
Peter Schjeldahl: “On the merits of the case, I would have identified with the R.S.A.P. people at a time – a long time; decades – when I had left the first class of people who like Renoir and had yet to join the second. … In the second class of people who like Renoir are those who have stopped fortifying their self-esteem with pride in their sophistication.”
Houston’s Alley Theatre Just Got A Makeover – How’d It Come Out?
“In fact, some at the opening commented that, except for the new red carpet, the 46-year-old building looks much like it did before the makeover, which, in a city where nearly everything is torn down, is a positive thing.”
How Does a Casting Director Work?
“Bernie Telsey has been casting hit musicals, films, and TV shows for more than 20 years. [Here he] talks about what he’s looking for in an audition, how diversity has changed on the stage and screen during his time in the business, and how finding talent isn’t necessarily the hardest part of the job.” (audio)
Scans Can Now Link Brain Activity To Intelligence
“Now that neuroscientists have used maps of people’s brains to accurately predict intelligence, reality creeps ever so much closer to fiction.”
How To Thwart Art Fakes? DNA
Two years ago, the Global Center for Innovation at the State University of New York at Albany, “known for its work in bioengineering, encryption and nanotechnology, set about developing a way to infuse paintings, sculptures and other artworks with complex molecules of DNA created in the lab.”
Iran Calls For Boycott Of Frankfurt Book Fair Because Salman Rushie Is Invited
Tehran on Wednesday said it was boycotting the Frankfurt fair, because it had “under the pretext of freedom of expression, invited a person who is hated in the Islamic world and created the opportunity for Salman Rushdie… to make a speech”. It also urged other Muslim nations to join its boycott.
Inside Nobel Winner Svetlana Alexievich’s Work
“Her method is the close interrogation of the past through the collection of individual voices; patient in overcoming cliché, attentive to the unexpected, and restrained in the exposition, her writing reaches those far beyond her own experiences and preoccupations, far beyond her generation, and far beyond the lands of the former Soviet Union.”
They’re Putting A Swimming Hole On Berlin’s Museum Island?
“A proposal under consideration here called the Flussbad (‘river pool’) would clean up a filthy canal, part of the River Spree, that flows around the tourist-mobbed Museum Island. The plan would add new wetlands and some place the public can literally dive into. Despite detractors who picture Berlin’s cultural center being upstaged by the equivalent of one long, riotous water-filled bouncy castle, the idea, which has been around for a while, is gaining momentum.”
The Gold-Leaf Modernist Mural Inside A Mountain
To see it, “you’ll need to make a 2½-hour train journey from Glasgow to the Highlands, drive 1km into the heart of a mountain and climb a flight of slippery steps on to a viewing platform before you can catch a glimpse: a 48ft x 12ft mural made of wood, plastic and gold leaf, sparkling away at the centre of a vast cave like some fairytale treasure. … Even the artist behind the work has never made the trek to see it in situ.”
How Can We Give Female Choreographers A Lift? A Live Online Discussion
London’s Rambert dance company brings together a panel, chaired by The Guardian‘s Judith Mackrell, “that will focus less on the reasons why women are falling behind than on what can be done to support them.” The discussion will be live-streamed online on Wed., Oct. 14 (4:30 to 6:00 pm UK time), and questions may be submitted beforehand.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.12.15
Becoming An Art Convert In Spain – And Why
Earlier this year, I made an art pilgrimage to Valladolid, the home of Spain’s National Museum of Sculpture. So much Spanish Renaissance and Baroque sculpture resides and stays in Spain, sometimes because it can’t leave and sometimes because there is no demand to borrow it, … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-10-12
Dreaming a Never-Stopping Dance
The Seán Curran Company brings East and West together at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2015-10-12
Monday Recommedation: Karrin Allyson
Songs Richard Rodgers wrote with lyricist Lorenz Hart from 1925 to the early 1940s have been among the standards most often played and sung by jazz artists. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides
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Marilynne Robinson And President Barack Obama, Just Having A (Long, Recorded) Conversation About Everything
Robinson: “I think that we have created this incredibly inappropriate sort of in-group mentality when we really are from every end of the earth, just dealing with each other in good faith. And that’s just a terrible darkening of the national outlook.”
Obama: “We’ve talked about this, though. I’m always trying to push a little more optimism.”
When You’re A Woman, Directing Work Dries Up After One Flop
Mimi Leder: “I excel in television. I’ve directed nine pilots and six of them went to air, so my television career was flourishing, but I couldn’t get arrested in features. Saying this sounds like sour grapes, but it isn’t: It’s very different for women filmmakers than it is for male filmmakers. And the film business itself changed dramatically. They just wanted to make tent poles.”
How To Make Your Life Better: Make Things With Your Hands
“Skill has been regulated to the margins in a culture that puts a higher value on conception – on self-expression, creativity, imagination – than on execution.”
One Way To Get More Diversity On TV Is To Keep On Asking For It
Lucy Liu, Watson on the show ‘Elementary,’ said, “The one thing I’ve learned, and I think everyone can take this away with them, is that a closed mouth doesn’t get fed. … So open your mouth. If somebody says no to you, that’s fine. You’re going to hear no a lot in your life, and that’s just what it is. And somebody’s gonna say yes sometime. So you always have to ask the question.”
Arts Funders Are Doing A Pathetic Job Of Giving Money To Latin@ And African American Arts Groups
“The ‘Diversity in the Arts’ report contains another potentially controversial finding: When large, mainstream arts organizations put on black- or Latino-themed performances or exhibitions, they siphon away artistic talent, donations and attendance from black and Latino companies.”
Tech Giants Like Dell And HP Are The Real Walking Dead
“When someone asked what we should call that IBM-HP-EMC-Dell-Cisco merger, his response was wonderfully descriptive. He suggested calling we call the company Fucked By The Cloud.”
The Rome Film Festival Is In Trouble. Can A New York Film Professor Save It?
“I am a great tormenter. I break the balls of everybody: “Give me the film; give me the film.” Of course personal relationships have a role. Of course several of these people trust me and trust what I’m doing, yes. But it’s a serious program. They don’t come just to come to Rome — they believe in the festival.”
The Academy Rejects China’s Submission For Best Foreign-Language Film For Not Being Chinese Enough
“Officials have replaced the film, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, who is French, with ‘Go Away Mr. Tumor,’ a lighthearted romantic comedy about an optimistic woman coping with cancer.”