“The story of 11-year-old Sally Horner’s abduction changed the course of 20th-century literature. She just never got to tell it herself.”
Report: Big Tension Between Music Director, Musicians At The Dallas Symphony
“When you’re not playing well, you’re not playing well. And if I am the messenger of that, well, then, of course, I will be disliked by some people. But I am always honest, with myself and others.”
NY Subway Performers Being Arrested By Police
“Although performing on the platform and mezzanine is legal (there is no permit or permission needed), subway performers have experienced an unprecedented amount of harassment from NYPD officers this year.”
“Books Aren’t Just Commodities” – Ursula K. LeGuin’s Speech At The National Book Awards
“Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. … Yet I see sales departments given control over editorial. … And I see a lot of us, the producers, who write the books and make the books, accepting this – letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish, what to write.”
San Diego Symphony’s Music Director Announces His Departure
“Jahja Ling, the conductor responsible for rebuilding and revitalizing one of the region’s keystone cultural institutions, is stepping down.” Said the maestro, “After the 2016-17 season, I look forward to pursuing more international guest conducting, … teaching and continuing my volunteer work in Christian mission.”
Creative Workers In A Post-Industrial Society (They’re Living, Breathing Metaphors)
“The conversion of defunct factory spaces into art spaces is a powerful metaphor for the conversion of U.S. cities from places where thousands of people made stuff to places where a few hundred creatives toil, typically for low wages.
Did Paperbacks Help The U.S. Win World War II?
“The largest of them were only three-quarters of an inch thick—thin enough to fit in the pocket of a soldier’s pants. Soldiers read them on transport ships, in camps and in foxholes. Wounded and waiting for medics, men turned to them on Omaha Beach, propped against the base of the cliffs. Others were buried with a book tucked in a pocket.”
How Do Successful Writers Deal With ‘Reader’s Block’?
“I read a ton leading up to a project, but then when I’m right in the middle of it, it’s best if I’m not being influenced by other fiction. I can pretty much always read poetry, however.”
How The Smithsonian Got Drawn Into The Bill Cosby Scandal
“This is yet one more powerful reason why museums should not be in the business of showing private collections that haven’t been given to them. The Museum of African Art would have a great deal more freedom to distance itself from Cosby if it owned or were certain to own the art rather than having it on loan.”
As Art Schools Have Become More Elitist Are They Losing Out On The Most Creative Students?
“Art schools used to be havens for students who, for whatever reason, had not found their niche in the traditional academic system. Now prospective art students very often have to prove their academic credentials to compete for a place at the most prestigious colleges.”
A Better Case For Corporate Support For The Arts
“More than half of all Canadians listen to music daily, read fiction several times a month or more and have visited a museum or art gallery in the last year. The numbers who go to concerts and plays are smaller, but when asked what kind of event they like to attend outside the home, 34 per cent of Canadians chose the arts while 29 per cent chose sports. That last stat contains a big message for business sponsors who sometimes prefer to lend their names to sporting events because they judge them to be more popular – and more populist.”
Art And The Tyranny Of Forcing You To Watch
“More and more artworks define and dictate the time their audience must give them. Too many videos are made like feature films, with a start and finish, and the clear message that you need to watch the whole thing to understand it. Performances too can be like plays, with a defined start and end. This is so wrong – like those weird old photos of 1960s audiences primly watching happenings.”
$600 Million Expansion Of Colonial Williamsburg
“The campaign, which officially starts Saturday, includes a $40-million upgrade to the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, adding 8,000 square feet of new gallery space to the building that houses the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum and the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum.”
How Paperback Books Helped Win World War II And Create New Demand For Books
“By the end of the war, the Armed Services Editions had ushered in a new era for the publishing industry, which had previously balked at printing paperbacks. The experiment showed that if books could be printed in an affordable way, publishers could reach a new audience.”
Secrets And Suicide At The 92nd Street Y
“Sol Adler devoted his life to the 92nd Street Y, courting its billionaires and burnishing its cultural power. But when he brought scandal to its doorstep, the institution kicked him to the curb. And that, his family says, is what killed him.”
ArtPrize Is Expanding To Dallas
The world’s richest art competition, with $200,000 prizes awarded by jury and public vote, is stretching beyond its Grand Rapids home for the first time. ArtPrize Dallas, which will be administered independently, will open its first edition in April 2016.
“Serial” Addresses The Backlash Directly (More Or Less)
“Up until now, it has seemed a little bit like Serial was occurring in a vacuum, removed from the fandom and hubbub surrounding it. But on this week’s episode – which came after a week of mounting backlash online and a public statement on Reddit from a man claiming to be Hae Min Lee’s brother – the show seemed to reach a brand new level of self-awareness.”
Use Your iPhone At The Orchestra Or Opera? In Philly, Sure!
“The technological barbarians are at the gate – and are being welcomed graciously. Only three years after an errant ringtone during the New York Philharmonic’s performance of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony sparked an international uproar, two august Philadelphia institutions are telling audiences to keep their phones on – within particular limits.”
Return Of The Repressed? John Cameron Mitchell Will Be Playing Hedwig On Broadway
The writer and original star of Hedwig and the Angry Inch “said he was initially reluctant to play Hedwig again after his yearlong run downtown and then in a 2001 film adaptation. But as he watched [Neil Patrick] Harris, Andrew Rannells and Michael C. Hall in the role over the last seven months, … ‘I was kind of itching to do it, and if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it, because I’ll be too old.'”
“A Capacious Sensibility” – Mike Nichols As Theater Director
“It made perfect sense that the man who was one of the original producers of the musical Annie was also the Broadway director of Hurlyburly, David Rabe’s cocaine-strewn drama about Hollywood hedonists. Or that after hitting box office gold with the musical spoof Spamalot, he switched gears and concentrated on dramas by Clifford Odets, Arthur Miller and Harold Pinter … He had tremendous instinct not only for what was funny but what could grab an audience, surprise them, wake their minds, move them to indignation or, better yet, tears.”
A Big White Flower By Georgia O’Keeffe Sells For $44.4 Million
Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 “smashed records Thursday morning [at Sotheby’s] when it sold for $44.4 million – a price three times larger than the previous auction record for a female artist.”
Sotheby’s CEO Steps Down – And Its Stock Price Goes Up
“The chairman and chief executive of Sotheby’s is stepping down, the auction house said on Thursday, a little more than a year after the billionaire hedge fund manager Daniel S. Loeb derided the company as ‘an old master painting in desperate need of restoration’ and demanded sweeping changes.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 11.20.14
Failure or Success: What are we more afraid of? A Leading Innovation in Arts & Culture Conversation
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2014-11-20
Sotheby’s Roars Back In American Art
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2014-11-20
Oops: There’s Bigger News From Sotheby’s
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2014-11-20
Revealed: Roman Hoard, Found In France, Conserved Here
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2014-11-19
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Why Hasn’t The Internet Made More Of An Impact On Our Lives?
“The Internet age just isn’t that impressive. Technological advancements of the last century had a truly transformative effect over the previous industrial age. Ice farming was replaced by refrigeration, the horse and buggy by the automobile, burning of fossil fuels for energy by centralized electrical power production. These advancements were notable not just in what they achieved in themselves but how they affected society.”
Mike Nichols, 83
Over a six-decade career as a performer, director and producer, he racked up a Grammy, at least two Emmys, nine Tonys (!), only one Oscar (surprisingly), a National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honors – and had a profound effect on American theater and film.