“It’s a question of justice. And it’s becoming increasingly important as we get further and further away from World War II, because the original owners are dying, and even knowledge about collections is disappearing with each subsequent generation.”
Working Actors Recall Their Days As Waiters
“People would order these decadent desserts all the time and not finish. We were a bunch of poor actors, and we’d bring them back to the kitchen and eat them. I especially remember a banana cake soufflé. I probably ate a dozen or so famous people’s desserts in the half-year I worked there – I’m not ashamed to say.”
The End Of Theory: Time To Rethink How We Study Literature?
“From the Seventies to the present, English departments have been fascinated by theory after theory, including varieties of structuralism (Lacanian, Althusserian, Foucauldian, post-) and identity-political criticism (beginning with feminist critiques, then critical race theories, queer theories, and culminating, for now, in disability studies). Each of these theories is worthwhile on its own terms, but cumulatively they raise questions about the task of the English department: Should it really just be the analysis of texts through theoretical frameworks borrowed from philosophy, linguistics, political theory, history and so on?”
There’s Another Kind Of Synesthesia, One Involving Touch
“Imagine being so disgusted by denim, for example, that running a hand over jeans makes you want to puke. Or feeling the urge to laugh whenever you touch silk. Or getting the creeps whenever you put on a fabric glove. That’s life for people with tactile-emotional synesthesia, a mysterious condition in which seemingly arbitrary textures can be enough to make someone laugh or cry.”
Congressional Critics Put Military Bands In Their Crosshairs
“According to Pentagon data from fiscal 2015, the last time the Defense Department did a full inventory, the military spends at least $437 million a year on musicians, their instruments, special uniforms, travel and related costs. That marks a steady rise from previous years, even as the Pentagon insists the services have cut a sizable number of musical troupes. By some official estimates, it’s now spending $100 million more a year than in 2011.”
Stryker: Major New Music Prize Missed Opportunity To Distinguish Itself
Mark Stryker on the new $100,000 M-Prize: “There were two major disappointments with the 15-member jury’s winner. The judges missed a golden opportunity to manifest the progressive DNA so earnestly built into M-Prize and best symbolized by the inclusiveness of the open division. More lamentable, the decision forfeited the chance to make a transformative investment in the future of the art form, a core value of the competition. Instead, the winner simply reinforces the status quo.”
Outgoing Fresno Philharmonic Music Director Says He Wanted To Stay On
Theodore Kuchar: “Fifteen [years] is a large number, but, hey, I wanted to stay in Fresno … [CEO Stephen Wilson] wants me out of town as quickly as possible so people forget.” Says Wilson, “It is fair to say that the relationship between music director and exec director in professional symphony orchestras is a complex one. … For an organization to be successful, it absolutely has to be a partnership.”
Making A (Possibly Great) Movie In One Take, With No Script, Requires A Strong Actor
Even Before Tinder, Heck, Even Before The Internet, Dating Was Always Hard
“Weigel read dating-advice books from the 1800s and hundreds of articles on dating from teen and women’s magazines over the years, and she found two common themes: First, there is usually an older part of the population that perceives dating to be ‘dying,’ or, at least, as not being done ‘appropriately.’ Second, Weigel found that the way people date has almost always been tied to the market forces of their era.”
How To Keep A Musical Great When The Original Stars Take Off
The Jury At Cannes Surprises Just About Everyone With The Palme d’Or
This Week In Audience: Audience Blackmail Edition 05.22.16
Five Stories From Last Week’s AJ: Likes And Dislikes Edition
Why aren’t the arts something we can all get behind? Maybe it’s somewhere in the psychology of how we like what we like? Revealed: nobody reads arts reviews anymore (says an editor who hates to run them but wants to “support” the arts). Where the money is in music (hint: not for musicians). And is “This American Life” undermining public radio?
Have We All Been Misreading Jasper Johns, All Along?
“The commonly accepted reading of Johns’s career – that he rejected subjectivity, which we associate with Abstract Expressionism, in favor of detached objectivity – overlooks his interest in intuitive responses to life and art.” (This is Part One; read Part Two here.)
The Woman Who Runs Universal TV
The Peabody Awards Are Like The Oscars, Except For ‘Electronic Media,’ And Not #SoWhite At All
Aziz Ansari “thanked the Peabodys for recognizing titles that other awards groups didn’t. ‘Let’s be honest: So many awards shows f— up,’ he said. ‘They don’t give people awards that probably should get awards and the Peabody is great because it seems like you guys actually watched all of our shit and decided it was good.”‘”
When You Close Two Libraries ‘To Save Money’ And Then Spend More On Security To Guard The Buildings Than It Would Have Cost To Run The Libraries
“The two sites – the Carnegie library in Herne Hill, south-east London, and the Minet library nearby – closed their doors on 31 March before planned works to turn each one into a “community hub”, a combination of a largely unstaffed library and a private gym. The council said this was the only option to keep both libraries open amid massive central government cuts to local authority budgets.”
The Women Of Classical Music’s Past
How A Ballerina Gets Back Into Shape After Maternity Leave
“In the ballet world, pregnancy is no longer the secret that a dancer has to hide from the boss. It’s no longer a potential career-ender. But the question remains: How hard is it for a new mother to turn back into a ballerina? The experience is different for every dancer, but in the case of Maria Kowroski, the statuesque New York City Ballet principal, it’s been humbling.”