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Tuesday, October 29, 2013
current top story
"Egypt's Jon Stewart" Is Back On TV - And Back In Trouble "The Egyptian broadcaster CBC has distanced itself from its star satirist, Bassem Youssef, after he criticised both the army-backed government and the Islamist regime it succeeded in the first episode of his long-delayed new series."
The Guardian (UK) 10/28/13
music
Louisville Orchestra Appoints 26-Year-Old Music Director Teddy Abrams "who will begin a three-year contract as music director in September 2014, has been the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's assistant conductor since 2012. There he has curated the content of the orchestra's education concerts and concerts intended for families and reached new audiences through neighborhood performances."
Louisville Courier-Journal 10/28/13
music
Could New York City Opera Find New Life In The Burbs? "In one scenario, the new company would rehearse and perform about 30 miles north of New York City at Purchase College, State University of New York." During the 1980s, the school was the scene of the well-regarded Pepsico Summerfare festival, where Peter Sellars staged his famous reimagining of the Mozart-daPonte trilogy.
Bloomberg 10/27/13
theatre
When Audience Participation In A Play Does And Doesn't Work Lyn Gardner: "Last Saturday afternoon in Newcastle, I watched a very good actor struggle and work incredibly hard to get six people up on stage during Theatre O's take on
The Secret Agent ...[The following night] it was easier getting audience members to participate in
Piff the Magic Dragon ...even though it was a potentially far more daunting situation."
The Guardian (UK) 10/29/13
publishing
Maybe Alice Munro Won't Retire After All Says the newest Nobel literature laureate, "Every day I have mixed messages to myself over whether I will retire. I have promised to retire but now and then I get an idea."
The Wall Street Journal 10/22/13
people
How Frank Langella Won It All, Lost It And Earned It Back Again "I was a terrible pain in the ass: 20s, 30s, 40s, those decades. ... My career has been like a Chekhov play - not the normal exposition, plot, conflict, denouement - but all over the map in terms of success, money, fame, wipeout and back again."
The Guardian (UK) 10/28/13
people
After 40 Years, Sophia Loren Finally Wins Her Tax Evasion Case "In a verdict she described as 'a miracle', Loren, 79 and living in Geneva, was declared by Italy's supreme court to have been in the right over calculation of tax paid on her 1974 earnings. Her accountants said she should pay 60% while the authorities said 70% was due."
The Guardian (UK) 10/24/13
media
"Egypt's Jon Stewart" Is Back On TV - And Back In Trouble "The Egyptian broadcaster CBC has distanced itself from its star satirist, Bassem Youssef, after he criticised both the army-backed government and the Islamist regime it succeeded in the first episode of his long-delayed new series."
The Guardian (UK) 10/28/13
dance
Royal Ballet Star Edward Watson Does A Pop Music Video The project is the
Metamorphosis star's "collaboration with the band The Feeling, who asked him to interpret a song from their fourth album, out this month. Shot in an aircraft hangar in north London on Watson's day off, the arresting video shows him moving and miming to the words of the title track, 'Boy Cried Wolf'."
The Observer (UK) 10/26/13 (includes video)
ideas
Another Way In Which Video Games Are Bad For Humanity? "The evidence that playing violent video games promotes aggression, and perhaps even ethnocentrism, seems fairly conclusive. Better, one could conclude, to stick with non-violent games ... But wait. Newly published research provides tentative evidence that even that variety of video gaming can have a negative impact, desensitizing players to both their own discomfort and the suffering of others."
Pacific Standard 10/28/13
ideas
The Curious Evolution Of The Sign Spinner "In the midst of the recession a new occupation emerged: the sign spinner. These individuals stood on sidewalks outside of businesses, dancing with signs or arrows that they threw and twisted in the air and around their bodies." Now many of those human spinners are being replaced by robot mannequins. But what kind of humans vs. what kind of mannequins?
Pacific Standard (Sociological Images) 10/25/13
media
When Radio Went Bump In The Night "By the 1960's listening to [mystery] stories on the radio might have seemed square, but not if it was the wonderful and weird terrors of the work of Erik Bauersfeld."
The Smart Set 10/28/13
theatre
issues
Education - Becoming Unbundled "Openness in a digital age implies that more academic services and content will be portable and that, for better or worse, this changes the kind of policies and institutional forms which are available to academic communities."
Pacific Standard 10/26/13
visual
The Place JFK Was Shot - Architecture Not To Love "Dealey Plaza is instead a curious mixture: part high-traffic intersection, part gateway to the city, part flood-control project, and part accidental historical monument."
Los Angeles Times 10/26/13
music
NY City Opera - It Battled Bravely From The Start "It had been a star-crossed organization for years, beset by strikes, warehouse fires, financial woes and the devastation of the early years of AIDS. Beverly Sills--the company's biggest star, its long-time general manager and most effective fundraiser--estimated that the troupe lost more than 100 people to AIDS in the space of a decade: directors, conductors, singers, and others at the peak of their youth and sexual urgency, cut down by a mysterious new malady."
New York Review of Books 10/25/13
publishing
How Being Published Makes You Stop Writing "The more publishing in aggregate gets hysterical about the end of literature as we once knew it--I personally am not the only agent of insecurity here--the more their publicists are frantic for writers to accept any opportunity whatsoever to attract attention."
The New Republic 10/24/13
media
Do Movie Theatre Only Still Exist Because Of Nostalgia? "There's the rub. It's nostalgia that keeps the movie racket alive as it exists today. Cannes is irrelevant. The movie theatre is irrelevant... The movie racket is dying. Long live the home screen experience."
The Globe & Mail (Canada) 10/26/13
issues
Innovation? Maybe That's A Trap For Arts Organizations "The world is changing radically and so must we. That's the agenda underlying the innovation mandate. This change agenda is actually a critique, a presumption that arts organizations are calcified, failed."
HowlRound 10/26/13
dance
The Difficulties Of Restaging Twyla Tharp Thirty Years Later "Tharp used a recording by Jascha Heifetz during rehearsals. As a result, the steps contain the DNA of that violinist's brilliant interpretation. Afterwards, it was difficult to find a player who could measure up to Heifetz, who would also have the modesty to consider the needs of the dancers."
Dancetabs 10/28/13
visual
Problems With China's Art Market "Even as the art world marvels at China's booming market, a six-month review by The New York Times found that many of the sales -- transactions reported to have produced as much as a third of the country's auction revenue in recent years -- did not actually take place."
The New York Times 10/28/13
visual
media
visual
Auction Houses And Galleries Are Staking Out Positions In A New Art War "The danger of auction houses muscling in on galleries' turf was vividly illustrated last week at Christie's when collector-dealer Charles Saatchi dumped 50 large sculptures from his collection, several by artists with little or no auction history, on the market."
The Observer (UK) 10/26/13
music
issues
theatre
issues
This Week's Edition Of 'What The Selfie REALLY Means' "We document everything we want to be true. We seed in subplots with two careful clicks and a Valencia wash. In saying: 'I'm fine! I'm totally fine!', aren't we, sort of, asking: 'Am I?'"
The Observer (UK) 10/26/13
publishing
So, Is It Cool To Write As If You're Actually Jesus? "'First of all, she doesn't say that Jesus speaks to her,' Ms. Bearss said. 'I feel like she's tried to be pretty clear about that in her book introductions. In no way does she believe her own writing is sacred or that she has new revelations.'"
The New York Times 10/25/13
media
Netflix May Make An End-Run Around Theatres For Big Movie Releases The company's chief content officer: "The reason why we may enter this space and try to release some big movies ourselves this way is because I'm concerned that as theater owners try to strangle innovation and distribution, not only are they going to kill theaters, they might kill movies."
The Hollywood Reporter 10/27/13
publishing
What's The Role Of Fiction In Contemporary China? Chinese writer Yu Hua: "The biggest problem facing Chinese literature is how to express today's realities. Reality is more preposterous than fiction. It's a difficult task to convey reality's absurdity in a novel."
Los Angeles Review of Books 10/25/13
ideas
publishing
The Internet Is Ruining Everything, But Especially Freelance Writing "People who would consider it a bizarre breach of conduct to expect anyone to give them a haircut or a can of soda at no cost will ask you, with a straight face and a clear conscience, whether you wouldn't be willing to write an essay or draw an illustration for them for nothing."
The New York Times 10/26/13
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