“‘Are you satisfied with your life?’ ‘How are you feeling?’ Does either question tell us what we really want to know?”
Fred Ho, 56, Composer, Saxophonist, Activist
“Mr. Ho, who was of Chinese descent, considered himself a ‘popular avant-gardist.’ He was inspired by the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and by the ambitious, powerful music of African-American bandleaders including Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Sun Ra and especially Charles Mingus. But he rejected the word jazz, which he considered a pejorative term imposed by Europeans.”
An Art Market That Keeps Redefining Itself (As It Should Be)
“The end of art has repeatedly been announced. But there is no end: art is always open to new developments. Every serious collection has to face this challenge.”
London’s Small Theatres Win Big Over The West End
“Commercial theatre and subsidised theatre feed each other to a mutual advantage. You can’t have one without the other. If subsidised theatre actually dwindled overnight you would find a very depleted commercial theatre.”
The History Play As Lesson For Today
“The history play, it is believed, derived from the medieval morality play, and one of the welcome features of its popular return is the instructive example it provides an age badly in need of the long view.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.13.14
What do we want from a Culture Secretary?
AJBlog: For What it’s Worth | Published 2014-04-13
How Many Make a Solo?
AJBlog: Dancebeat | Published 2014-04-12
This archive recording broke all fund-raising records
AJBlog: Slipped Disc | Published 2014-04-12
AJBlog: Performance Monkey | Published 2014-04-11
Trouble With iTunes, and More On San Diego Opera
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-04-11
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London’s Hottest Little Theatre (Literally) Gets A New Lease On Life
“The 220-seat Shed auditorium at the National Theatre opened last April and perches jauntily on the river front like an upside-down red wooden cow. What was meant to be a one-off, one-year project has now been granted a three-year stay of execution, taking it until spring 2017.”
Brave New World: STILL Too ‘Controversial’ For Some Americans
“Why would we teach kids what is negative in society? Let’s teach them what is right, to become good citizens and improve the fabric of society.”
New Rules For New Technology – We Need ‘Em
“The hybridization of ourselves and our technologies, and the political and economic struggle around this process, threatens to destabilize some qualities of our intimate lives that are also among the core foundations of our civil and moral society: freedom, trust, empathy, forgiveness, forgetting, attention.”
Suddenly, Everyone Loves Really Old Photos – And Here’s Why
“A photograph really is a frozen fragment of time. Not even the fastest, most gifted artists or the most sensually specific novelists have ever captured the kind of incidental realities a photograph dumbly records – the creases in the uniform of the last Napoleonic veteran, his paunch and sidelong glance and white whiskers – or the Brighton Swimming Club in 1863, naked except for their trunks and top hats.”
What Does LBJ Playwright Robert Schenkkan Think About Political Power?
“LBJ was certainly aware of the vagaries of power. He believed that it was important to do everything you could and to use everyone around you in order to further your goals. But at the end of the day there would come a reckoning and power would recede and you would lose your effectiveness. And it didn’t matter how good a politician you were, it was just impossible to control the game all the time”
The San Diego Opera Just Gave Its Last Performance (We’re Pretty Sure)
“After a three-week battle that convulsed the community here and subjected its once revered opera company to widespread derision and accusations of mismanagement — Ian D. Campbell, its general and artistic director, was nearly booed off the stage when he stepped out to introduce ‘Don Quixote’ this month on opening night — the board of directors on Friday reaffirmed its intention to close down”
This Guy Saved His Local Bookshop, But What’s Next In A World Dominated By Amazon?
“Recent figures showed the number of independent bookshops in the UK has dropped below 1,000 for the first time; the rise of Amazon and e-books, and the decline of many British high streets has pushed the figure down to just 987.”
What Won Big At The Oliviers? Small Theatre, Not The West End
“There is something emancipating about doing a show outside the West End where you don’t think you have to hit the jackpot every time. You’re not panicking about whether you can fill the theatre and there’s not a hysterical pressure there sometimes is when you do a show in the West End and there’s a lot of cash and reputation hanging on it.”