“Even in cases where robots manage to act in ways similar to us (like playing chess), the way they go about performing these actions is very different from the way we do it. Both fish and submarines can travel distances underwater, but it is questionable whether it is appropriate to say they both swim.”
Why Does So Much Arts Criticism Wallow In Personal Struggle? (Who Cares?)
“Contemporary criticism is positively crowded with first-person pronouns, micro-doses of memoir, brief hits of biography. Critics don’t simply wrestle with their assigned cultural object; they wrestle with themselves, as well. “
The One Person From The “Hamilton” Team Sure To NOT Win A Tony
“If the tea leaves prove correct, the Tony Awards could wind up feeling like one big infomercial for Hamilton. Which is pretty awesome! Except for the one person from Hamilton’s creative team getting screwed out of a nomination, if not a win. Say hello to the show’s sound designer, 49-year-old Nevin Steinberg.”
Shakespeare Did Not Sound Like Lawrence Olivier (For One Thing, The Rhymes Worked)
“David and Ben Crystal, a father and son team, have recreated what they say is Shakespeare’s original pronunciation, or OP, as they call it – how Shakespeare’s plays would have been sounded around 1600. … The OP accent that emerges from the Crystals’ research sounds closer to the Northern English or even some American accents.” (audio)
Americans Say They Love Their Libraries – So Why Are They Using Them Less?
“According to a new Pew Research study, 76 percent of Americans say that libraries well serve the needs of their community. … Yet on the other hand, fewer and fewer Americans are using the institutions every year.” Why? Investment.
Mirga Doesn’t Quite Get The Fuss About Her Being A Woman Conductor
“But I accept I must still be a cheerleader. Mothers come up to me and thank me for setting an example to their daughters. And I am happy to take that responsibility. I grew up without imagining any problems.” (In the Baltics, after all, maestras aren’t all that unusual.) “I hope those who come after me will think it quite normal.”
From ‘Roseanne’ To ‘The Office’ To ‘The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ – How Did The Dark Humor In Sitcoms Get *This* Dark?
“Some years ago TV comedies found grim humour in ordinary domestic life. Now even sitcoms about murder and sex slavery are bright and bubbly. … What happened?”
U.S. Congress Passes Law Banning Import Of Antiquities From Syria
“The US Senate unanimously passed a bill intended to stem the perceived flow of illicitly removed artefacts from Syria on Wednesday, 13 April. The Protect and Preserve International Cultural Property Act had already passed Congress’s lower chamber, the House of Representatives, and is headed to President Obama to be signed into law.”
The Young Artists Destroying Stereotypes About Asian American Women
“They asked Asian women to finish this sentence: ‘All asian women are not ____.’ They received hundreds of submissions, but decided to present 100 statements that seemed to consistently come up. The statements succinctly touch upon the fetishization of Asian women, the model minority myth, the token sidekick and myriad other stereotypes that Asians face.”
The Murky World Of The Ancient Artifact Market
“On the one hand are the source countries, which are mostly poor and have passed laws against taking ancient objects out of the country — but they often don’t have the wherewithal to enforce the bans. On the other hand are the rich countries where the collectors live.”
The Problem With Critics
“My objection isn’t so much to the idea that it’s wrong to use your own experiences as a guide to explain how you interact with the items under review as it is to the fact that so many of the critics who are doing it are boring, grasping people whose experiences are mundane at best and often comically overvalued given how empty and insignificant they are.”
Evaluating Steve Reich As He Turns 80
“If music was invented to restore our emotional and psychological equilibrium, Music for 18 Musicians is one of the great pieces of music ever composed.”
The Next Big Playwright Just Might Be A Quiet British 29-Year-Old
“Even at this stage of her career, Ms. Mitchell said, Ms. Birch is an important writer, in the tradition of Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield — ‘those tough women who can also do exquisite lyricism.'”
What A Play Is, Or Could Be, And Certainly Is Not
“If your friend wrote the play, do not tell her upon curtain that ‘the actors were really talented.’ Actors are popsicle sticks painted with eyes and animated by her mind and your praise can immolate itself on a bonfire stoked with those sticks, thanks.”
The 2016 Finalists For The International Man Booker Prize
“The Nobel prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, pseudonymous Italian author Elena Ferrante, Chinese dissident Yan Lianke, Angolan writer José Eduardo Agualusa, Austrian Robert Seethaler and South Korean Han Kang have all been shortlisted for the award, which celebrates the finest global fiction translated into English.”
The Best View In Rotterdam Is From The Roof. So The City Is Building A Grand Staircase To Get You Up There
“Today, Rotterdam is a hub for landmark buildings and experimental construction, with new projects including MVRDV’s market hall and the OMA-designed De Rotterdam. The Stairs will be built next to another of these new additions – the railway station by Benthem Crouwel, MVSA and West 8.”
Romanian Prime Minister And Culture Minister Say They’ll Intervene In Kobborg Crisis At National Ballet
Responding on Facebook to an open letter from Alina Cojocaru, prime minister Dacian Cioloş said he hopes that “the ensuing dialogue of today (which will continue in coming days) with Culture Minister Vlad Alexandrescu will find a solution to the situation at the [Bucharest National] Opera.” Alexandrescu, also writing on Facebook, said, “The Ministry of Culture wishes to continue working with Johan Kobborg and Alina Cojocaru … [and] is currently looking for solutions that … respect artistic quality, creative freedom, and the international nature of the projects at the Opera … The Ministry intends to use this opportunity to re-launch and re-calibrate the relationship between creators and administration within the institutions under its authority.” (Emphasis added.) (in Romanian; Google Translate version here)
Why Are Movies Based On Words And Not On Images?
“For 8,000 years we’ve had lyric poetry, for 400 years we’ve had the novel, theatre hands its meaning down in text. Let’s find a medium whose total, sole responsibility is the world as seen as a form of visual intelligence. Surely, surely, surely the cinema should be that phenomenon.”
Miami City Ballet, Reborn
“MCB is also one of the most diverse companies in the United States without us trying to be. One thing is saying I believe in diversity and I’m going to seek it out and another thing is saying it is who we are. When you look at the roster of MCB, half of them are from Latin America, the other half is from the US and we have a few from Europe.”
Advertising Company Starts Recording Label For Street Musicians
“Passersby can film a short video of a street musician they like and post it to the Sound of Change website with the hashtag #soundofchange, including a geotag and the musician’s contact information in the description. Hungry Boys monitors the most popular musicians on the site and connects them with recording opportunities at nearby studios, the output of which is distributed through channels like iTunes and Google Play.”
Your Next Binge-Watch Should Be Wagner’s ‘Ring’ Cycle
Anne Midgette: “Indeed, with its giants and dwarves and dragons and battles and love duets, it bears marked resemblances to a lot of today’s most popular screen sagas: the political shenanigans of House of Cards, the epic flavor of Game of Thrones, the fairy-tale elements of Lord of the Rings. … (And by the way, where do you think the idea for The Lord of the Rings came from, anyway?)
The Original Gentrification Story: Adam Gopnik On The Place Des Vosges In Paris
“History tells us that it is the Cinderella – or, as the French would say, the Cendrillon – of the world’s great squares. It was born to encourage manufacturing, quickly turned into a region for real estate speculation, then given its permanent, completely irrelevant title in one of the most cynical ‘naming opportunities’ ever conceived before the modern football stadium.”
Mario Vargas Llosa Is Now Officially A Living Legend (The Library Of Congress Has Decreed It)
“The Peruvian writer was a leading candidate for his country’s presidency in 1990, is the last survivor of a literary movement that re-energized the novel in our time and is probably the only winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature to compare the joys of writing, in his 2010 Nobel lecture, to ‘making love to the woman you love, for days, weeks, months, without stopping.'”
The New Tate Modern: More Galleries, More Performance, More Women
“The new Tate Modern will open on 17 June with around 60% more gallery space provided by its 11-floor Switch House extension. In the basement, floor 0, will be The Tanks, the world’s first museum spaces dedicated to live art.” Says new director Frances Morris, “There is a commitment now to show the real history of art and the contribution made by many women who have been overlooked for many reasons.”
Please Stop The Arts Cuts!, England’s Arts Funding Body Begs Local Governments
“Arts Council England chair Peter Bazalgette has made a plea for local authorities to ‘keep the faith’ and continue funding the arts to avoid losing ‘irreplaceable’ organisations.”