Peter Brooks warns that our “mindless valorization of storytelling” makes us more susceptible to those with more malevolent intentions — “inertly accepting the notion that all is story, and that the best story wins.” - The New York Times
Isadora Duncan once famously claimed that if she could tell you what she meant, there would be no point in dancing it. That attitude—that dancers should be seen and not heard—continues to pervade the concert dance scene. - Dance Magazine
We all need to be able to take a step back and realize that just because we feel something disproportionately, it doesn't mean that it exists disproportionately, in reality. In reality, none of the changes people are being asked to make to make things more equitable are actually all that painful. - Wonkette
Some cite studies that have shown people who listen to books retain less than those who read them, which is bound up with how tempting it is to do other things while listening. - Wired
The mailroom was out of control. Employees helped themselves to books, telephone calls to Hong Kong, extra sandwiches during press week. They had a softball team. My duties included babysitting for the publisher’s assistant’s children. - LitHub
Lewis ultimately transcended category. With typical arrogance, he would frequently declare that there were only four real stylists in American music: Al Jolson, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and, of course, Jerry Lee Lewis. - Variety
That quest for answers got a boost from Italian researchers in a paper published by the American Chemical Society that outlines the findings of their chemical analysis of two venerable violins. - Ludwig Van
It seems reasonable to pose the question of art’s relation to politics in the context of the specific crisis that democracy seems to have entered within the past 10 years or so. The dominant intellectual responses to this crisis have, if anything, pushed the arts further outside the sphere of political relevance. - Aeon
Mahler would be appalled at the recorded perfectionism of the modern Vienna Philharmonic. He changed his mind from one rehearsal to the next. His music is about living in the moment. That’s what Steinaecker’s Toblach ensemble achieved. - The Critic
Starring Ralph Fiennes as Robert Moses, the play has churned up considerable interest: Performed in a 500-seat theater, it’s already sold out for the entire two-month run, and tickets are reselling for as much as $2,000. (Don’t despair entirely, though: There’s a waitlist.) - Bloomberg
“We shouldn’t be vehicles for political protest and we shouldn’t be vehicles in and of itself for political change. I regard museums as civic institutions playing their role in society as providing a frame and context for the political and social discussions while remaining highly trusted.” - ARTnews
Taking the helm of an unhappy company is José Carlos Martinez, a 53-year-old Spaniard, who spent 23 years dancing therey, 14 of them as an étoile, before retiring from the stage in 2011 and serving for eight years as director of Spain's Compañía Nacional de Danza. - The New York Times
The first clue that the painting, an adhesive tape version of the similarly named New York (which hangs right-side up in Paris at the Centre Pompidou), was hung incorrectly came from a photograph of the artist’s studio in taken in 1944, shortly after he passed away. ARTnews
"John Frankenheimer's thriller ... managed the neat, eerie trick of looking prescient for multiple decades following its 1962 release. ... Watching the movie now, it's striking to see how some of its dynamics have been reversed in US politics." - The Guardian
