“The biggest threat those of us working in colleges and universities face isn’t video lectures or online tests. It’s the fact that we live in institutions perfectly adapted to an environment that no longer exists.”
Two Unknown Poems by Sappho Discovered
Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian’s chief arts writer and a classicist herself, recounts how the poems were found, explains how we know they’re Sappho’s, and provides plenty of background – plus a translation of one of the poems.
Painter Bernard Perlin, 95
“[He] displayed a mastery of light and line across seven decades and a wide range of work, including wartime propaganda posters, street scenes of New York and effervescent views of Italy.”
‘We’re Not a Bunch of Dopes Who Scream’: Jennifer Rivera Explains Opera to the Super Bowl Crowd
In advance of Renée Fleming’s appearance at the Super Bowl, the always-witty mezzo lays it out in plain language for regular folks: “Opera singers have to train for years.” “Opera was into color-blind casting way before it was a thing.” “Opera is not just for the rich. Period.” (Especially compared to the cost of Super Bowl tickets.)
Yet Another Russian Literary Dispute Turns Deadly
Last fall it was over Immanuel Kant. This time it was the superiority (or not) of poetry over prose. (Was vodka involved? Need you ask?)
How The Mayor Of London’s City Planning Is Ruining The Character Of London
“They have presided over a wealth of misconceived, mean-minded schemes that are destroying the social and physical fabric of London, lubricating the path for private enclaves of oversized, poorly designed mega-blocks, to be sold to overseas investors with little care for creating decent places to live.”
Toronto’s Largest Performing Arts Theatre Is Looking For A New CEO (But There Are Complications)
There could be many candidates capable of running the Sony Centre on its own. But how many are available with the know-how to integrate two or three arts operations, and the track record to prove it?
Detroit Institute of Arts to Buy Itself Back From City for $100 Million
“The Detroit Institute of Arts has pledged to raise $100 million for the federally mediated rescue fund to shore up municipal pensions, prevent the forced sale of any of the museum’s irreplaceable masterpieces and spin off the city-owned museum to an independent nonprofit.”
Academy Revokes Nomination for Best Song Oscar
“‘Alone Yet Not Alone,’ a little-heard tune from a little-seen film of the same name, will not appear on Oscar ballots when the final round of voting begins on Feb. 14. And the Academy will not announce a replacement nominee.” The issues seem to be conflict-of-interest and campaign violations. Maybe Hollywood is Washington, D.C. for beautiful people.
Architect Meets Critics Face-to-Face Over MoMA’s Plan to Tear Down Folk Art Museum
“An architect typically doesn’t go before the public to defend a private project. But on Tuesday night Liz Diller of Diller Scofidio & Renfro stood before a crowd of 650 people, many of them her peers, to explain in detail the six-month process by which her firm tried to save the former home of the American Folk Art Museum before deciding it was impossible.”
Robert Lepage Spills the Beans (Well, a Few of Them) on Guy Laliberté and Cirque du Soleil
“I get along with Guy but others find it tougher. … Some can feel a bit bullied by him. There are points where we didn’t agree. He can come in a week before and say this or that doesn’t work. So you have to be prepared for that.”
Classical Music Isn’t Dead, So Let’s Stop Trying to Kill It
“There is a creepy bloodlust to the doom-mongering of classical music, as though an autopsy were being conducted on a still-breathing body. … What supports these jeremiads is the implicit idea that classical music is an aberration in the United States, something to be regarded with suspicion.”
Ballet Dancers – ‘We’re Tougher Than We Look’, Says Edward Watson
The great ginger gentleman of the Royal Ballet talks us through the damage dance has done to his body over the decades.
What’s the Difference Between Bad Dreams and Nightmares?
Researchers at the University of Montreal analyzed of sleepers’ dream logs. The distinction they settled on is that nightmares are bad enough to wake you up; and both their content and their associated emotions are different from those of mere bad dreams.
Do What You Love? Should You Really Make Your Passion Your Job?
Er, is this a question underpaid arts professionals want to ask themselves in the morning? Well, maybe so.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.29.14
Not Against Interpretation
Source: We The Audience | Published on 2014-01-29
Pricing at the Met
Source: For What it’s Worth | Published on 2014-01-29
Rothschild Prayerbook Squeezes Out A New Record, Sort Of
Source: Real Clear Arts | Published on 2014-01-29
“Dirt Always Wins” — A Story, Part Two
Source: Out There | Published on 2014-01-29
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Hong Kong Publisher Detained and Jailed, Allegedly for Book Denouncing Chinese President
Yiu Mantin (Yao Wentian in Mandarin) was arrested three months ago on charges of smuggling chemicals into mainland China, but his family maintains he is being held because he was about to issue a book very critical of President Xi Jinping.
Smithsonian Says It Won’t Reopen National Mall Building To The Public After Renovation
It’s the Arts and Industries Building, one of the oldest buildings on the Mall. “The cost of rehabilitating the building for public use and operating it exceeded the available funding sources at this time. . . . The building will remain closed for the foreseeable future.”
Consumer Group Pushes Ticket Agencies To Justify Their Fees
“It’s something that people have told us they’re really fed up about,” he said. “That’s what we’re saying to the companies, you need to explain what these fees are for.
How Pete Seeger Transformed Pop Music
“[He] introduced American pop to a different America: the one outside Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood, where a volunteer gospel choir could sing with more gumption than a studio chorus, and where a decades-old song about hard times could speak directly to the present. The folk revival reminded the pop world that songs could be about something more than romance.”
Box Office Down, Deficit Up at Metropolitan Opera
Donations are up, as is income from the HD broadcasts, but attendance reached only 79% in 2012-13.
Indiana Jones Had Nothing on the (Real-Life) Monuments Men
They were “a small group of art professionals, many of them from Ivy League colleges and top U.S. museums, who, in the last days of [World War II] and well after the surrender of Germany, secured and preserved millions of European cultural objects looted by the Nazis and returned them to the nations from which they had been taken.”