But nothing can replace the live experience. "Call it immediacy or authenticity, unpredictability or uniqueness, but it’s part of the reason people pay more to attend a single concert than they will to purchase the entire recorded works of the same musician." Live streaming theatre, though, is tricky. - Irish Times
Some of the nation's top (male) artists are unhappy about the lack of drawing classes, bemoaning the lack of compulsory drawing classes at the Royal College of Art, Slade, and other art schools. Apparently, one says, "You now have people who are more interested in conceptual art – which is actually what you do if you can’t draw." -...
Price, inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, had his first big rhythm and blues hit with "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" in 1952. "Nicknamed Mr. Personality after his most recognizable hit, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart in 1959, Mr. Price found success with Black and white audiences alike. He was a prolific...
Broad's vision was of a Champs-Elysées on Grand Avenue, but all with his stamp on it. "Broad’s ambitions ought to prod Angelenos to consider what they think should be central to their city. Emperors, bureaucrats and billionaires mold cities to their desires, but so could humbler aspirations. ... To better serve its future sense of place, Grand Avenue may...
Fraud - and 8.5 million (Eight. Point. Five. Million.) bot comments secretly created by ISPs to urge against net neutrality. To be fair, there were millions of other fake comments, but according to the New York Attorney General's report, "the astroturfing effort by the broadband industry stood out because it used real people's names without their consent, with third-party firms...
Masterful essay writer Elissa Mashuta: "This is the dilemma at the heart of the process: writing would be easier if I had an assured end point to aim for, but the essay only works if I begin without knowing what I’ll find as I advance through the paragraphs. I want to control everything, but the essay won’t let me."...
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association's released list of "reforms" didn't impress anyone much. Instead, the list set off "a remarkable cascade of criticism toward the embattled HFPA, plunging the group into further turmoil as it attempts to weather a crisis that has imperiled its awards show and its very existence. By Friday evening, two of awards season’s biggest power...
A survey released by the Actors Fund says that "40% of the arts and entertainment respondents reported being more food insecure during the pandemic, 28% were behind in rent or mortgage payments and 20% had been forced to change housing" - and nearly 80 percent could use some mental health help as well. - Broadway News
Macdonald was a producer for the BBC in 1973 when she "was given what she thought would be a one-off journalistic assignment: to accompany a group of World War I veterans from a British rifle brigade on a final pilgrimage to the battlefields of France." She interviewed more than 600 veterans and wrote seven books about their experiences, popularizing...
Those who read the book or saw the movie may not quite believe it, but the real-life case from which the author drew her inspiration was far worse. Then there were her own kids. "I had three and a half years’ worth of things to say. About what a huge gap separates an adult and a small child, with...
Yes, it's a bit early to start placing bets, but still: "There are many nervous insiders hoping the post-pandemic pendulum will swing back toward those big mainstream movies. So here’s an early look at the presumptive awards field, starting with the very movies the Academy is surely hoping will save the Oscars." - Vulture
Bookspan realized young that he probably wouldn't make it as a solo violinist, but he brought music to anyone with a radio or TV. "After an early career behind the scenes at radio stations in Boston and New York, he established himself as a stalwart of Live From Lincoln Center, the PBS program that became America’s premier source of...
Art house films in particular bear the marks of their specific directors and writers - and that often doesn't translate (sorry, Another Round and Leo DeCaprio). "This may explain why so many international films optioned for remakes never get made. Paramount’s version of German Oscar nominee Toni Erdmann (2016), DreamWorks’ planned adaptation of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Like Father, Like Son (2013), or Tom Hanks’...
No matter what you've got in your house, there's nothing like watching a movie in the theatre with scores of other people. Then there are the prices: "The fact that I know I’m being ripped off is, somehow, part of the charm. Have you got a statistic about the ludicrous mark-up on popcorn for me? Have you got a...
Someone even asked, "Are we going to pretend nothing happened?" But no, not at the fair itself: "To gain admittance at the Shed at Hudson Yards, visitors had to fill out an online questionnaire and upload their proof of vaccination or negative Covid test results before receiving a QR code. There were no exceptions. Even Michael R. Bloomberg, whose...
