‘Delicacy And Violence, Danger And Control’ – A History Of The Choker
“The choker is, on the one hand, simply one more way that the current culture has been looking back nostalgically to the ’90s. But they evoke much more than ’90s grunge: Chokers were common across ancient cultures, and cycled in and out of style during the most recent centuries in the West – prized for their ability both to conceal the neck and to highlight it. Today they most readily suggest the romantic (and the Romantic). But they also carry a note, visually slicing as they do across the most vulnerable part of the human body, of violence. And, with it, control.”
The Man Who Invented The Modern Bookselling Business
“Today, few people are likely to remember James Lackington (1746-1815) and his once-famous London bookshop, The Temple of the Muses, but if, as a customer, you’ve ever bought a remaindered book at deep discount, or wandered thoughtfully through the over-stocked shelves of a cavernous bookstore, or spent an afternoon lounging in the reading area of a bookshop (without buying anything!) then you’ve already experienced some of the ways that Lackington revolutionized bookselling in the late 18th century.”
The Woman Whose Life And Death Could Provide A Sequel To ‘Hamilton’
“Today, if people know anything about Theodosia [Burr Alston], it is because of the lovely lullaby ‘Dear Theodosia,’ sung by the character of Aaron Burr in the sensational musical Hamilton. But the real-life Theodosia grew from a beloved child into a highly intelligent, complex adult, whose fascinating story is largely unknown and worthy of its very own Broadway smash.”
The Caravaggio At The Heart Of The Wildenstein Money-Laundering Trial
“The Lute Player was discussed in [a Paris] court last week in a trial in which eight defendants, including Guy Wildenstein, the president of the New York art business Wildenstein & Company, are charged with tax evasion and money laundering. The French government estimates that the estate could owe at least €550m, including fines and interest.”
Lost Film From 1904 Turns Up In Prague
“Researchers at the Czech national film archives said Tuesday they had found a film by early cinema pioneer Georges Méliès that was thought to have been lost forever. The silent two-minute Match de prestidigitation (‘Conjuring contest’), dating from 1904, was found on a reel given to the archives by an anonymous donor, labelled as another film.”
Stepping Into Fred Astaire’s Tap Shoes
Corbin Bleu, who started out as a star in Disney’s High School Musical and went on to star on Broadway in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights and the 2012 revival of Godspell, talks about his role – one originated by Astaire – in the revival of the Irving Berlin musical Holiday Inn.
Meet The First Woman Head Carpenter Of New York’s Backstage Workers’ Union
Jennifer Diaz, 34, “has made history, becoming the first female head carpenter of Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. The local’s 3,351 members work in spaces from the Met to Carnegie Hall, at Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden, and in every Broadway theater – including the Walter Kerr, which is where she was one morning in September, overseeing the load-in for the musical Falsettos.”
Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize For Literature
“He is the first American to win since the novelist Toni Morrison, in 1993. The announcement, in Stockholm, came as something of a surprise. Although Mr. Dylan, 75, has been mentioned often as having an outside shot at the prize, his work does not fit into the traditional literary canons of novels, poetry and short stories that the prize has traditionally recognized.”
Scientists: Google Is Rewiring The Ways We Think
“Whereas before we might have tried to recall something on our own, now we don’t bother. As more information becomes available via smartphones and other devices, we become progressively more reliant on it in our daily lives.”
Dario Fo, Nobel-Winning Playwright, Dead At 90
“He was best known for Accidental Death of an Anarchist (1970), a play based on the case of an Italian railroad worker who was either thrown or fell from the upper story of a Milan police station while being questioned on suspicion of terrorism, and for his one-man show Mistero Buffo (‘Comic Mystery’), written in 1969 and frequently revised and updated over the next 30 years, taking wild comic aim at politics and, especially, religion.”
Study: Reading Literature Can Bridge Political Divide
The linguist Roman Jakobson once contrasted political conventions with literary ones: the problem with political conventions, he said, is that they encourage people to “mindlessly agree” with slogans, which in turn, create unnecessary antagonism between different groups of people. Literary conventions, on the other hand, where individuals get together to read and talk about books, were different.”
We Celebrate Creativity (But We’re Also Suspicious Of And Hostile To It)
“The paradox of this bias against creativity lies in the fact that creativity — along with its close cousin innovation — is frequently celebrated in business as a most desired organizational trait. Reports of management excellence from McKinsey to KPMG state that creativity among the workforce is a basic requirement for long-term business success. Why then does the organizational immune system kick into high gear whenever exposed to the very thing it needs to survive?”
Time Keeps On Slippin’ Into The Future – Here’s Why
Even astronomer Phil Plait finds the physics a bit confounding, but here – complete with animated cartoons – is the explanation he’s gotten from his buddy Sean Carroll, a cosmologist. (Basically, it’s all about entropy.)
Restoration Unlocks Secrets Of The Magnificent Ghent Altarpiece
“A study in 2010 determined that the altarpiece needed conservation – to remove varnish and to adjust the colours of older retouches. A €1.3m grant followed and now – with the restoration one-third complete – the discoveries are astonishing, casting light on a touching story of fraternal love and admiration.”
Cameron Mackintosh: Weakened Pound Sterling Is Boosting West End Theatre Ticket Sales
He highlighted how surprised he was to see so many people in the West End on a Monday night, and added: “It’s the best September I can remember across my theatres.”
So What Are Dreams, Really? Five Theories
“If you’ve ever been befuddled by a dream, take heart: You’re following a 4,000-year tradition of confusion. Over that time, humanity – in the form of religion, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience – has actually come to somewhat understand what exactly the mind is doing in its slumbering states. To that end, here are five of the leading theories for what dreams are and what they do to us.”
Report: Streaming Theatre Performances Don’t Threaten Live Audience Attendance
“Of 243 companies surveyed, 38% said the advent of live-to-digital has had a positive impact, compared with only 13% who said it had had a negative impact. In fact, an audience preference for live shows over the recorded alternative was found to be the biggest barrier to attendance of theatre broadcasts at cinemas. Just over half of those surveyed said their preference for live theatre put them off event cinema.”
The Twilight Of Leonard Cohen
“As I approach the end of my life,” says the songwriter/poet/mystic, “I have even less and less interest in examining what have got to be very superficial evaluations or opinions about the significance of one’s life or one’s work. I was never given to it when I was healthy, and I am less given to it now.” But David Remnick, somehow, manages to get him to do it.
Hundreds Of Languages Are Dying (But Maybe That’s Not Always A Bad Thing?)
“Linguists instinctively decry the loss of language much as conservationist biologists once mourned the loss of every single species. But conservation is in the midst of a paradigm shift, moving towards acceptance that not all species can be saved, that invasive species are not always bad and that human-engineered ecosystems are not necessarily inferior to natural ones.”
Reading ‘Don Quixote’ With Fugitives From Pinochet’s Coup
Ariel Dorfman: “Of the myriad times since adolescence that I have returned to the story of Don Quixote de la Mancha, there is one I choose to remember – that I cannot help but remember – as we commemorate the 400th anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes. That reading, in October 1973, took place among a distraught group of captive men and women who, like me, had sought asylum in the Argentine Embassy in Santiago, Chile, after the coup that overthrew the democratic government of Salvador Allende.”
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The Complicated And Colorful “Father Of Dance” In Canada
“So how did ballet come to Canada? Like so much else, it arrived in waves, beginning with ambitious 17th-century colonists who brought European culture to the shores of North America in the form of dance lessons for indulged children. Only in the early 20th century did professional ballet training begin; pioneers of Canadian ballet such as Ottawa’s Gwendolen Osborne brought their tradition and training to students who could manage almost perfect 180-degree turnout. The country’s first major choreographers then looted indigenous cultures in search of something saleable.”
Five Art Fair Clichés That Need To Die
“A dietary staple of an exhausted creative vocabulary, artistic gimmicks continue to be regurgitated at art fairs around the globe. These well-worn ideas have appropriately been parodied on Tumblr pages like ‘Who Wore It Better’ and on Instagram via the anonymous profile @whos__who. Despite some variation in scale, material, or display, these tried-and-tested clichés now urgently demand retiring.”
Everyone Has Dumped On Brutalist Architecture. So Now It’s Popular Again
“Despite two generations of abuse (and perhaps a little because of it), an enthusiasm for Brutalist buildings beyond the febrile, narrow precincts of architecture criticism has begun to take hold. Preservationists clamor for their survival, historians laud their ethical origins and an independent public has found beauty in their rawness.”
Putting Real Fire And Rain Onstage With Your Own Homemade Machine
Theatrical devices that can provide both a steady stream of rain and actual fire are expensive to rent, let alone buy. So the Wilma Theater’s crew designed and built one themselves.
They’re Remaking ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ – Can They Even *Do* That?
This new Rocky Horror, airing Oct. 20 on Fox, “is its own strange experiment. It will test whether a decades-old musical about science-fiction B-movies and all kinds of sexual awakenings is still relevant or has grown quaint, and whether a Rocky Horror movie made with some polish and preparation is still Rocky Horror at all.”
There’s Still Plenty Of Unknown Work Being Discovered At The Clyfford Still Museum
“Five years after the Clyfford Still Museum opened its doors, much of its collection has yet to be examined. More than 300 paintings by the pioneering Abstract Expressionist whose works fill the museum remain unstretched. ‘A lot of the paintings still smell like they are drying – we’re the first people to unroll them since he made them,’ says Dean Sobel, the museum’s director.”
What’s A Forensic Musicologist? Here’s What
“Peter Oxendale, a onetime glam rocker (‘We all have skeletons,’ he says), is perhaps the world’s leading forensic musicologist, the person musicians call when they believe someone has ripped off their work. In a penthouse overlooking the English Channel, he analyzes songs, everything from pop hits to classical pieces, until he is sure there has been an infringement, or not.”
Klaus Kertess, Art Dealer Who Launched Major Careers, Dead At 76
“Barely a quarter-century old, Kertess opened Bykert [Gallery] in September of 1966, with the financial backing of his former Yale classmate Jeff Byers … Over the next nine years, Bykert would show a formidable roster of artists associated with Minimalism, Post-Minimalism, and Process Art, including Brice Marden, David Novros, Barry Le Va, Alan Saret, Chuck Close, Bill Bollinger, and Dorothea Rockburne, among many others.”
Chief Curator Of Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis Resigns In Wake Of Controversial Exhibit
“[Jeffrey] Uslip’s departure follows weeks of controversy over CAM’s current solo exhibition by white artist Kelley Walker that some found demeaning to African-Americans.”
Was It More Than A Bad Back That Led La Scala Ballet’s Director To Resign?
One of Italy’s leading dailies is reporting that the company dancers’ public rebellion against Mauro Bigonzetti’s repertoire choices did indeed figure in his resignation last week – and that, while his back troubles were a deciding factor, the concern wasn’t solely about Bigonzetti’s own well-being.