Archaeologists have found plenty of evidence of women warriors in the areas where Amazons were said to live. They didn’t cut off breasts or live without men, but they did fight, hunt, smoke pot and get tattoos.
New Audiences For Dance? Here’s How
“Just like American sports fans today who may fall in love with soccer, and cheer for a club based 5,000 miles away while ignoring the one in their own backyard, American ballet fans tomorrow are primed to subscribe to a ballet company that they will rarely, if ever, have the opportunity to see live, but can still enjoy through one of many different distribution channels.”
What Do Conductors Do, Really?
“In a more mundane way, we might think of conductors as the musical equivalent of sports team managers. You can’t quantify precisely what it is that they do – but you know it when you see it. … So what it is, exactly, that they do? Whether visibly or invisibly, consciously or unconsciously, here are some of the myriad things they get up to on that podium …”
What Ancient Greek And Roman Statues Look(ed) Like In Color
Most people assume that classical statuary was mostly of pure white marble, a sort of pure source of Western civilization. But scholars have known for at least a century that most Greek and Roman statues were brightly painted – and now an exhibition in Copenhagen is trying to reconstruct their original appearance.
One Woman Defends Jian Ghomeshi, Saying Everything He Did With Her Was Consensual
“I do want people to know how thorough our consent talks were.” So (naturally) she contacted Dan Savage. Dan offers a transcript of his interview with her and offers his attempt to square her account with those of his accusers.
Bookstore MFA
“At some point, it’s just you and the poems. You haven’t been told to read a poem, you haven’t been assigned a poem to critique, you haven’t been told a book’s really great, so you’re just picking up books that either speak to you or don’t. You’re just looking through book after book after book trying to find something engaging.”
D.C. Isn’t That Exciting A Town, But The Hirshhorn Museum’s New Director Has Big Plans
“I hope this means we are able to come up with another kind of new bold vision that has the potential to be a real game-changer in terms of contemporary art and the way technology impacts contemporary art.”
Does Going On A World Tour Make A Symphony World Class?
“In Chicago Symphony lore, it was the orchestra’s first-ever overseas tour — a massive six-week, nine-country, 15-venue, 25-concert trip led by music director Georg Solti in 1971 — that vaulted it to world-class status while changing cultural perceptions of Chicago, with the orchestra greeted by a ticker-tape parade upon its return home.”
How’s Modern Dance Doing In Vietnam?
“We have a history of war, but we are not trying to promote that, but rather bring the feeling of what we have through contemporary dance, through the eyes of a young generation.”
Galway Kinnell, Poet Of Nature, Religion And Human Rights, Dead At 87
“He also wrote frequently about death. ‘The Book of Nightmares’ was inspired by the horrors of the Vietnam War. But as angry as he could be, he sometimes considered mortality more gently and wistfully.”
Stan Lee, Creator Of ‘X-Men’ And ‘Spider-Man’ And Other Comics, Beats His Namesake Company In Court
“The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals finds Stan Lee Media Inc.’s claim of owning Spider-Man, the X-Men and other characters to be ‘implausible'”
Theaters Are (Finally?) Recovering From The Recession, Says Report
“Earned income was up an impressive 40.8 percent (adjusted for inflation), although total attendance was up only 0.4 percent.”
New York’s Latest Graffiti Crackdown May Be Backfiring
“Busting graffiti artists distracts the local cops from fighting serious crime, like robberies or homicides, which have increased in Long Island City’s 114th Precinct, where 5Pointz is located, over the past year.”
Are Some People Hard-Wired For Bravery And Others For Cowardice?
“Which trait increases my chances of survival or my chances to reproduce? What would be most adaptive is switching from one response to the other, depending the situation, but our underlying biology cannot switch back and forth that quickly”
Italy Hid This Leonardo Self-Portrait From The Nazis So It Wouldn’t Give Hitler Magical Powers
“It is said that just before taking an exam, students would do their last-minute revision in the Royal Library above the vault. Legend has it that studying near Leonardo’s genius can somehow rub off.”
Four More Women Allege That Jian Ghomeshi Smacked Them Around
One of them has even agreed to be identified publicly. All of them have given plenty of unsavory detail.
When Bill T. Jones Met John Cage
“[Cage] literally represented for me everything cool and removed and sophisticated at a time when I was trying to wend my way into the art world.” The choreographer talks about the genesis of his dance-theater work Story/Time.
Director Of Atlanta’s High Museum Of Art To Retire
During his 15-year tenure, Michael E. Shapiro led a $160 million, three-building expansion, raised $20 million for acquisitions, established an art conservation center, launched partnerships with major European museums, and founded an award for African-American art and artists.
The Johnny Rotten Of Soviet Dissidents
That’s how Edward Limonov described himself. He was “at once a rebel and a totalitarian, a salacious writer of semifictionalized memoirs who, after years in the West” – as a drugged-out thug in New York and a celebrated author in France – “stood with the Serbs in the Bosnian war and then returned to Russia to become an ultranationalist political agitator.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.29.14
Engagement Research: Talk to Them
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2014-10-28
Finding My Chowder — Part 2
AJBlog: Out There Published 2014-10-29
Farewell to Poet Galway Kinnell
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2014-10-29
Bad News: NY Times as Insert for Christie’s Advertising Section (plus: me at NYU)
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2014-10-29
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Museums Clash At Harvard
“‘This was a crime against humanity,’ says Princeton University architectural historian Beatriz Colomina—not known for understatement—about Piano’s treatment of Le Corbusier’s structure. ‘It’s such a mythical building and it is being destroyed by somebody who is a good architect.'”
Enhanced Ebooks Won’t Go Away Just Because Atavist Books Closed Up
“What does this mean for authors? Should we give up on interactive fiction? No, I don’t think so, but I do think we need to be aware from the outset it that it may have to be limber enough to straddle several mediums and formats.”
A Living Wage Comes To The UK’s Curzon Cinema Workers
“The decision puts pressure on its rival chain Picturehouse, which is embroiled in a dispute over pay at its Ritzy cinema in Brixton. Picturehouse, owned by multiplex group Cineworld, agreed to the demands for the living wage, but then said 20 redundancies would have to be made to accommodate the rise.”
Will A Former Courthouse Become An Arts Center In L.A.’s Culver City?
“The specific uses haven’t been determined yet, she said, but ‘we’re working with LACMA and Sony and other arts organizations to come up with a final program’ before starting design work on renovations.”
Last Ditch Efforts To Prevent Strikes In London’s West End
“The union is seeking London living wage – £8.80 – for workers on three pay grades below that rate, and a 6% rise for all other members.”