Star Tribune rock/pop/jazz write Jon Bream kept his giant record vault in a distant corner of the newspaper’s building since 1991. Now that the paper is moving its offices – and now that we’re in the digital age – Bream decided it wasn’t worth schlepping the collection. Here’s what’s happening to it.
Marlowe’s “Jew Of Malta” – Anti-Semitic? Or A Parody Of Anti-Semitism?
“This toxic cocktail of alienation and murder is laced throughout with deadpan black comedy. Think Wolf Hall reimagined by Quentin Tarantino, and you begin to get the feel of it. … It is a provocative or [Charlie] Hebdoesque piece of religious cartooning that challenges the complacencies and credulities of his audience.”
Pope Francis Hosts Private Viewing Of Sistine Chapel For Homeless
The group of 150 received a tour of the Vatican city-state and several of the Vatican museum galleries as well as the Michelangelo masterpiece – followed by a special dinner. It’s the latest of several initiatives – practical as well as symbolic – for Rome’s homeless by the pontiff’s top charitable officer.
Competition To Design New Helsinki Guggenheim Shows How Architecture Has Been Transformed By Technology
“Witness the competition for the next proposed Guggenheim museum, in Helsinki. It attracted 1,715 entries online, arguably the largest number ever in an architectural competition. The winners flooded social media and were picked over on design blogs within hours. If one is built, it will likely employ complex geometries rendered with the help of robots.”
Canada’s Largest Non-Profit Theatre Balances Its Books As Audiences Shrink
“The Stratford Festival ended its 2014 season in the black – but the latest news on the Ontario theatre festival’s attendance is less black and white.”
Have Humans Been Evolving Themselves?
“People want to know if humans are getting taller, smarter, better looking or more athletic. My answer is truthful but disappointing: We’re almost certainly evolving, but we don’t know in what direction or how fast.”
The Psychology Of Tall Buildings
“The current architectural zeitgeist, whereby form invariably follows finance, finds its purest expression in the skyscrapers de nos jours, with their parametrically designed waveforms that positively billow with opportunism.”
WQXR Boss: Here’s How To Pick The New Music Director Of The New York Philharmonic
Graham Parker: “What has frustrated me more in all the articles I have read since Alan Gilbert announced his conclusion as music director, was the complete lack of considering the audience in the short listing of candidates. The audience, in this case, are: current patrons of the New York Philharmonic; future audiences who like classical music but don’t buy tickets; folks who don’t yet like classical music but have a latent reason to like it at some point; and then the wider audience of New York and all that it stands for as a leading cultural capital of the world.”
Renoir, Picassos, Warhols Seized In Romanian Corruption Probe
“Romanian prosecutors investigating an alleged bribery scheme have questioned the former finance minister about the origins of 100 paintings,” including three Picasso sketches, several works by Andy Warhol, and an apparent Renoir that was found in a safe along with gold bricks.
Beyond Ai Weiwei: How China’s Artists Handle Politics (Or Avoid Them)
Thirty-something artist Cao Fei: “Criticizing society, that’s the aesthetics of the last generation. When I started making art, I didn’t want to do political things. I was more interested in subcultures, in pop culture.”
Cedar Lake Ballet Shows The Perils Of Relying On A Single – And Capricious – Funder
“The big message here is that whoever that founding donor is, unless they’re willing to put enormous endowments behind their vision, their organizations won’t survive if they don’t invite other people in.”
Google Is Adding A Mission – Documenting Street Art Before It Disappears
“Offering the best the street art world has to offer, the Google collection is an obvious boon for fans of the medium and benefits artists by giving them worldwide exposure. But cataloging, quantifying and curating run contrary to the street art ethos adhered to by artists whose ephemeral messages admonish and amuse people around the world.”
Hilary Mantel’s Notes On How Actors Should Play The Characters Of ‘Wolf Hall’
For Anne Boleyn: “In your lifetime you are the focus of every lurid story that the imagination of Europe can dream up. From the moment you enter public consciousness, you carry the projections of everyone who is afraid of sex or ashamed of it. You will never be loved by the English people.”
Would A Telepathy Machine Help Us – Or Should We Work On Empathy Instead?
“A telepathy machine, if it could ever be built, would undoubtedly have wonderful applications. It could allow people who are immobilised by a stroke or neurological disease to communicate, or create incredible opportunities for artists to collaborate. But it seems unlikely that it could broadcast world peace.”
Museums And Galleries Shutter As Yemen’s Political Unrest Turns To War
“Yemen’s artists, with photography a prominent art form that has produced several significant female photographers, were still working and producing interesting art, curators say. But ‘it is quite a challenge to be an artist in the country.'”
A Planned Skyscraper In The Alps Elicits Furious Response
“The outsize nature of the structure in the town of just 1,000 permanent residents is matched by the prices tourists will pay: according to The Telegraph, rooms at 7132, as the proposed hotel is called, will run from $1,000 to $24,000 per night.”
Will The Tate Give Back A Possibly Looted Constable?
“Tate Gallery says ‘new information’ has emerged over a John Constable painting in its collection thought to have been stolen by the Nazis. It has asked for a review of a recommendation that it should return the work to the heirs of the original owner.”
L.A. Actors Definitely At Odds With Each Other Over Equity’s 99-Seat Theatre Plan
Equity “surveyed its L.A. actors about ‘being a working theater professional in Los Angeles and what it’s like to be an Equity member,’ followed by focus groups and a town hall where members overwhelmingly spoke in favor of reforming, but not eliminating, the longstanding 99-seat plan.”
Seriously, Ballet, What Is Your Deal With Dancers Who Aren’t White?
“Dancers of color are again supplicants at the gate, begging to be accepted in an art form that literally can’t see us and so will not let us in.”
Carey Perloff: The Big Challenges For American Theatre
She’s disturbed by the way “many large-scale institutional theaters today have become roadhouses to incubate commercial productions headed for Broadway,” alarmed at the “relative paucity of female voices rising to the top of our profession” and frustrated that funding sources are so heavily focused on new-play development that there is “virtually no support for the training of actors” and not all that much for new approaches to the classics.
Tomas Tranströmer, 83, Winner Of 2011 Nobel Prize For Literature
“He wrote in exceptionally pure, cold Swedish without frills. His descriptions of nature were as sparse and alive as a Japanese painting. … His sparse output was highly praised from the moment his first collection, 17 Poems, appeared in 1954 and he was acknowledged as Sweden’s greatest living poet long before he won the Nobel Prize. He was translated into more than 60 languages.”
UK Funders Will Blacklist Museums That Sell Art For Profit
In a joint statement, the organisations said they were “concerned that a growing number of organisations are considering selling items from their collections for financial gain. Museum collections… represent an extraordinary act of generosity from one generation to another. It is clear that even when legally owned by museum governing bodies, they are primarily held in trust as cultural, not financial, assets.”
CBC: Death By A Million Cuts
“The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation announced Thursday that it is cutting another 244 jobs over the next six months to save $15-million annually, as part of its five-year plan to eliminate up to 1,500 positions by 2020.”
Used Records Are Fueling A Vinyl Resurgence
“It’s what fuelled the beginning of the comeback, as not many classic albums were available on new pressings even five years ago. Even now that they are becoming available again, many new reissues of classic albums are quite costly or simply still haven’t even been reissued yet, so used vinyl fills the need.”
Why Would Anyone Start A New Literary Magazine? (But Then…)
“Demand isn’t fixed or finite; it has the opportunity to surprise us. In strict consumer terms, people can’t demand what they don’t know about. The introduction of a service, a product or an idea is what ultimately drives demand. One of the things the LA Review of Books proved was that the demand for smart writing is larger than anyone expected, and what we’ve found in recent weeks is that there does seem to be demand for what we’re supplying.”