“Cold War modernism,” then, doesn’t refer to experimental artwork produced between the end of World War II and the Reagan administration, but to “the deployment of modernist art as a weapon of Cold War propaganda by both governmental and unofficial actors as well as to the implicit and explicit understanding of modernism underpinning that deployment.
Remember That Time When Google Was Buddying Up To Librarians? (Long Gone)
“Don’t get me wrong, we’re doing pretty great on our own, better than ever really. We’ve gotten a bit more independent, not putting all of our eggs into any one basket, gotten better at establishing boundaries. Still not sure, after all that, how we got this all so wrong. Didn’t we both want the same thing? Maybe it really wasn’t us, it was them. Most days it’s hard to remember what we saw in Google. Why did we think we’d make good partners?”
Intizar Hussain, Pakistan’s ‘Greatest Fiction Writer’, Dead At 92
“The prolific author was known for his novels, short stories, columns and poetry and belatedly saw worldwide recognition when he was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2013 and was awarded France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres a year later.”
Bollywood’s Very First Stars Were Jewish Women
When silent movies came to India, there were almost no experienced actresses there: respectable Indian women did not appear on the public stage. So most of the stars – some of whom also produced and wrote – came from the Baghdadi Jewish community in Bombay and the Bene Israel in Maharashtra. (One of them was the first Miss India.)
Temporary Opera House, Built Entirely Of Wood, Opens In Geneva
The 1,118-seat venue, called the Opéra des Nations, “was recycled from a temporary building used in Paris when the French capital’s Comédie Française itself underwent renovations.” It will be used for 2½ years while Geneva’s Grand Théâtre undergoes renovation. The acoustics are said to be excellent.
How Do Rich People Make Their Libraries Great? They Call This Bookstore
“‘It’s not that we’re selling by the yard,’ said the store manager, Nicky Dunne. ‘But if they’re interested in a subject’ — 19th-century French topiary, Brutalist architecture, salmon husbandry or something more obscure — ‘and haven’t properly explored books on that subject, then they come to us.'”
‘If You Don’t Feel It, You Can’t Do It’ – Diary Of A Flamenco Superstar
Sara Baras: “It takes courage, but flamenco artists often have longer careers than other kinds of dancers. They learn to adapt themselves to a type of exercise that develops extra agility and vigour. Older flamenco dancers can perform with a strength that you will not find in other dance genres.”
T.S. Eliot Adored Detective Fiction
“Eliot’s attitude toward popular art forms was more capacious and ambivalent than he’s often given credit for. … And it so happens that, well before detective stories came into vogue among [Edmund] Wilson’s cohort, Eliot had become one of the genre’s most passionate and discerning readers.”
Winona Ryder, Holden Caulfield, And The ’90s
“‘The goddam movies. They can ruin you. I’m not kidding.’ At 17, Winona Ryder underlined those words by Holden Caulfield in one of two copies of The Catcher in the Rye she was carrying with her. ‘Me and Holden are, like, this team,’ she said.” Because she turned out to be completely incapable of phoniness, even when it might have done her some good.
‘Jon Stewart Of Egypt’ To Get Series On U.S. Elections
The satirist Bassem Youssef, now in exile after one too many visits from Egyptian security forces, “will host The Democracy Handbook for F Comedy, Fusion’s new digital platform,” as part of the network’s 2016 election coverage. “The series … follows Youssef as he comes to America to learn the lessons of democracy.”
America’s Fastest (And Slowest) Talkers, Ranked By State
“To arrive at those state-by-state breakdowns, the analytics firm Marchex used what it calls Call DNA technology—software that analyzes call recordings to determine things like rate of speech, density of speech, hold times, and silences—on a set of calls recorded between 2013 and 2015. (These are the recordings that result when a pleasant robo-voice informs you that “this call may be recorded.” Marchex’s analysis includes more than 4 million such calls.)”
‘Parasite’ Homes On Rooftops Could Be Paris’s Next Affordable Housing
An NGO called les Toits du Monde is the developer behind the scheme, which uses prefabricated metal-and-glass boxes bolted into steel supports. on top of existing buildings.
Raleigh, NC Gets A Ten-Year Plan For The Arts
“After engaging more than 4,000 citizens for input over the course of 10 months, the 34-member arts plan steering committee announced in January that a draft of the plan is ready, with eight overarching goals, both short- and long-term, and 63 strategies designed to help achieve these goals.” (The plan was approved by the City Council that day.)
Pina Bausch’s Old Company Has A New Director
Adolphe Binder, currently artistic director of the dance company at the Gothenburg Opera in Sweden, “will be the fourth person to run the Tanztheater Wuppertal since Bausch’s sudden death in 2009. “Unlike Dominique Mercy and Robert Sturm, who ran the company just after Ms. Bausch’s death, and Lutz Förster, who succeeded them in 2013, Ms. Binder has no direct relationship with Wuppertal.”
Filmmaker Jacques Rivette Dead At 87
“[He was] was the pre-eminent theoretician of the French ‘New Wave’ and the film-maker who, with Jean-Luc Godard, came closest in his own work to realising the movement’s aims and aspirations.” Yet he ultimately came to believe that there is no such thing as an “auteur” – “that ‘A film by Jacques Rivette’, for example, was a contradiction in terms.”
Riccardo Muti Has Hip Surgery After Fall
“Chicago Symphony Orchestra Music Director Riccardo Muti has withdrawn from his Feb. 11-20 residency here so he can recover from a hip operation following a minor accident, an orchestra spokeswoman announced Tuesday night.”
Saudi Arabia Commutes Artist’s Sentence From Beheading To Eight Years And 800 Lashes
A court upheld the conviction of Palestinian poet, artist, and curator Ashraf Fayadh for apostasy – a charge that originally came out of an argument Fayadh had with another man in a cafe.
Renée Fleming: Next Season Will See ‘My Last Mainstream Opera Appearances’
“I don’t want anyone saying that I sang such-and-such a thing better five years ago. So I’ve decided that Rosenkavalier at Covent Garden and the Met next season will be my last mainstream opera appearances. It’s not retirement – I might be tempted by something newly written, but I’m not going to cling on. There’s plenty else I want to do.”
Nielsen Faces Sharp Criticisms Over The Way It Measures TV Viewership
“Nielsen, the 93-year-old company that has long operated an effective monopoly over television ratings in the United States, is facing blistering criticism from TV and advertising executives who see it as a relic of television’s rabbit-ears past as the digital revolution transforms how people consume entertainment. New competition — notably the $768 million merger this week of the media measurement companies comScore and Rentrak — is forcing Nielsen to evolve.”
Is This The Physical Manifestation Of A Bach Fugue?
“Translating an ephemeral medium like music into a physical object brings unavoidable challenges, namely the fact that music is inherently dynamic in both tempo and tone. An architectural installation, by its very nature, wants to be still.”
How Cities Shape Their Music
How the physical layouts of cities (and the ways people use them) shape the kinds of music that grow up there.
Will Surging Interest In Ballet Fitness Classes Lead To More Interest In Dance?
At minimum, ballet fitness classes are turning out pupils with respect for the professionals.
Jeffrey Toobin On Watching His Book, ‘The Run Of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson,’ Come To Television
“It was bizarre. … One of the weird things about it was – I don’t know if you remember this – when Chris Conner walks up to Shapiro’s office, he walks up a spiral staircase. Shapiro’s office had a spiral staircase. It looked exactly like that. That was not something I put in the book. That was not something that anyone asked me. It felt eerie to me.
Report: Amazon Will (Or Will Not) Open 300-400 Physical Bookstores
“Amazon already has one physical store that opened back in November. The Seattle store was dismissed as a “vanity project” when it was first announced, but apparently it worked out well enough that Amazon is willing to bet big money on it. It ain’t cheap to open 300-400 retail stores.”
The Rise Of The Cheesey Book Video Promo
” A writer can get mileage out of scorning the book trailer while also promulgating the book trailer. And if you must pander to viewers, you might as well simultaneously broadcast your movie-star friendships; and why not throw in the dog, too, seeing as you’ve already shown the requisite self-awareness?”