“Electronic books cannot benefit from the same reduced rate of value-added tax as paper books, the top court of the European Union ruled … the court argued that a reduced rate can apply only to physical books and that even though e-books can be read on tablets and computers, they should be considered ‘electronically supplied services,’ not goods.”
These Ideas Must Die
“Rather than asking if a new idea is a good one, we ask whether it’d be better if some of the ideas we cling to were killed off.” For instance, testing products on mice. (podcast)
Can Performing Shakespeare Help Ease The Symptoms Of Mental Illness?
“Suffering can be alleviated through the discipline of creative practices that serve to weave formless, unarticulated pain into something tangible, ordered and ultimately pleasurable.”
“An Otherworldly Experience Not Quite Like Anything Else In The History Of Cinema”: The Maysles Brothers’ Masterpiece, “Grey Gardens”
Andrew O’Hehir: “The world it captures, with its mother-daughter pair of aristocratic castoffs and their crumbling, weed-choked East Hampton mansion infested with cats and raccoons, is now so utterly vanished as to seem fantastic, an allegorical dream concocted by Scott Fitzgerald and Flannery O’Connor more than real people who existed within living memory.”
ISIS Takes Bulldozers To Destroy Ancient Site At Nimrud
“Many of the massive Nimrud statues remain buried at the site. But the ISIS video from the Mosul Museum clearly shows at least one statue from Nimrud being defaced. And the site has many areas that archaeologists have not yet explored.”
Performers And The Art Of “Physical Leakage”
“We all carry a physical signature in our bodies. When we’re under any kind of stress, our bodies behave in their usual habits – it’s called “physical leakage”. Your real personality starts to come out. Often, actors and dancers aren’t aware of what those habits are. Having someone who can look at them, and suggest ways of avoiding them, helps them to find a proper physicality for the character they’re playing.”
Common Experience, Different Impact: Why Are People Affected Differently By Trauma?
“A strange fact of human nature is that two people can experience exactly the same seemingly traumatic event and respond completely differently. One might face years of struggles as a result of suffering from the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological fallout, while the other, after an initial period of being shaken up, bounces back completely.”
Inside The Theatre – Immersive Experience Taking Hold Of Audiences
“Immersive theater takes place without a stage of any kind, in deserted industrial spaces, nightclubs, hospitals, hotels and more. It invites audience members to explore the action at their own pace by following performers around. Guests can roam the site at will, experiencing it as an interactive art installation.”
Women Composers: Genius Is Gender-Blind – And So Should We Be
Sara Mohr-Pietsch of BBC Radio 3: “Someone asked me the other day if the reason there are fewer women composers represented at the highest level was that male composers were simply better. My response was unrepeatably rude. Frankly, it’s too ludicrous a question to validate with a polite answer. My litmus test for those kinds of comments is this: replace ‘female’ with ‘black’, and ‘male’ with ‘white’. Now put the question to me again, and see how comfortable you feel asking it.”
Why That “Things I Can Say About MFAs” Essay Struck Such A Nerve With Writers
Laura Miller: “Not much of ‘Things I Can Say‘ offers a fresh take on the endless MFA debate. More at issue is the swashbuckling, bridge-burning and sometimes contemptuous tone Boudinot adopts and the implication that, as a one-time MFA instructor, he is speaking the secret thoughts of every creative writing teacher to whom a student has entrusted her fledgling work.”
Harper Lee Gives Direct Response To Journalist: “Go Away!”
“It appears that Nelle, as her friends call her, is very much with it, that she is still lucid and that her acerbic, press-averse side is fully intact.”
Kazuo Ishiguro Thinks His Fantasy Novel Is Not A Fantasy Novel – Does That Matter?
“Another day, another argument about whether a book about dragons is fantasy or not. … Well, if it walks like an orc, quacks like an orc, and generally behaves like an orc, it’s fantasy, right? The author isn’t so sure. … It is an argument that resurfaces every time an author with ‘literary chops dips a toe into the waters of SFF.”
Can Theatre Really Work As Treatment For Mental Illness?
“Theatre provides a rare stimulus for psychotic, schizophrenic and depressed patients, giving them an opportunity to communicate and interact constructively with others.” Beth McLoughlin looks at a program in Rio de Janeiro that’s giving it a serious try.
MoMA’s Björk Show Is A “Disaster”, Says Jerry Saltz
“I wanted to be surprised and proven wrong about the Björk show. Alas, I haven’t been. … It’s a discombobulated mess.”
“I Always Say Bill Is Balanchine On Steroids”: Dancer Thomas McManus On William Forsythe
“We’d take his moves and deconstruct them for six hours a day … Bill’s methods were so codified he could use them on stage as improvisations. We would be real-time choreographing, making decisions about timing and phrasing and spacing. There was a lot to be aware of.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 03.05.15
A Policy for the Arts: The White Paper of 1965
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2015-03-05
Badly Bungled Philanthropy
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-03-05
Sotheby’s Annual Report: Doubled Cap on Guarantees; Reduced Profits Attributable to Investor Activism
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-03-05
American Ballet Theatre’s Historical, Eye-Popping New The Sleeping Beauty
AJBlog: Fresh Pencil Published 2015-03-05
New Yorkish New Orleans and Chicago Diva at Symphony Center
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2015-03-05
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“Fifty Shades Of Grey” Blocked In India By Censors
“The theme of the movie is such that it could not be cleared in the first viewing. In the second step, a wider committee will review the film.”
What’s In A Name? LA Wrestles With Selling Naming Rights To Its Major Cultural Buildings
“Several Los Angeles arts organizations are in fundraising mode now, or expect to be, including the Music Center, which is L.A.’s performing arts equivalent of Lincoln Center.”
The San Jose Ballet Problem
“You might think of Silicon Valley as awash in youthful exuberance and money, enough to keep a medium-size ballet company afloat. Indeed, the challenge of getting young techies excited about works by Twyla Tharp, Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine was what lured Jose Manuel Carreno, 46, to San Jose.”
Composer Ezra Laderman, 90
“A prolific composer of symphonic, chamber and vocal music, Mr. Laderman won public notice thanks to his work about Marilyn Monroe for the New York City Opera.”
The Conflicting Values Of Self-Criticism
“We may not be able to imagine a life in which we don’t spend a large amount of our time criticising ourselves and others; but we should keep in mind the self-love that is always in play. Self-criticism can be our most unpleasant – our most sadomasochistic – way of loving ourselves.”