“Ear-openers represent the top slice of bread in the complaint sandwich. The meat of the sandwich is the complaint itself, or the request for redress, and the bottom slice of bread in the complaints sandwich is the digestive. The digestive is a positive statement much like the ear opener that comes at the close of the complaint.”
Frank Rich Swears That ‘Veep’ Hasn’t Imitated, And Won’t Imitate, Real U.S. Politics Or Donald Trump
The longtime New York Times and New York magazine columnist, executive producer of HBO’s political cringe-comedy, says, “We really believe in the integrity of this alternative-reality version of Washington that we’ve created. It has its own internal laws and its own original characters. Journalists – including me – have all had to update our premises and our assumptions as a result of Trump’s victory, but [at Veep] we have our own world.”
The Way ’13 Reasons Why’ Depicts Teen Suicide Is Downright Dangerous, Say School Counselors
Critics have been very impressed by the Netflix series, as has the Twitterverse (11 million tweets so far). “But the premise of the show … goes against everything we know about suicide, its causes, and means of prevention.” Marissa Martinelli explains the problems and talks to counselors who’ve been dealing with the show’s fallout.
How Artists Are Using Art To Solve Real-World Problems
Aydika James is the art director of Secret Samurai Productions, a collective of artists that aims to solve real-world problems through art. She’s also a member of Maverick1000, a group of entrepreneurs who meet annually on Sir Richard Branson’s private Necker Island in the BVI.
How Did Wendy Whelan Open Up Body For Non-Ballet Movement? She Threw Away Her Leotards
“The minute I got myself out of leotards, my body opened up: I didn’t feel so strict and tight and bound. I never expected you could change so much from the outside-in.” The former New York City Ballet star talks to Jennifer Stahl about the post-classical career she’s been building for herself and about the hip replacement she got in late 2015.
Battles In The Streets Of The Congo – But The Good Kind: Dance Showdowns
“A new festival in Goma in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo aims to encourage young people to express themselves through dance.” (video)
Go With The Flow Artistry? That’s Just A Myth, Unfortunately
Flow sounds appealing, and it seems to frequently coincide with some of our most pleasurable pinnacles of human experience, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into optimal performance. In great athletes, performing artists, writers, chess-players, doctors, nurses, air-force pilots and others, beneath the surface of effortless flow is unrelenting determination. And if developing one’s potential is key to a meaningful life – developing what Immanuel Kant speaks of in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals as our duty to cultivate our ‘predispositions to greater perfection’ – then flow, while bringing momentary happiness, might impede the attainment of that loftier value.
First $100 Million Lawsuit Against Organizers Of That Disastrous Weekend Music Festival
If you read only one lawsuit today, make it this one. (It’s embedded at the end of this article.) The suit offers a fine retelling of the “cultural moment” formerly known as the Fyre Festival.
Claim: New York Has Never Been So Great As It Is Right Now
“In my 67-year lifetime, the five boroughs have never been so full: Our population is soaring toward 9 million; most parts of town bustle with energy and investment; and crime has fallen to historic lows. I marvel over the blossoming. I can walk down the Hull Street block where I grew up without fearing for my life — which wasn’t the case 25 years ago when it was strewn with empty lots and menace lurked behind every parked car.”
June LeBell, 73, Pioneering Classical Radio Host
“After an early start as a professional singer, she turned her love for classical music into a groundbreaking career on WQXR in New York, where she became the first female announcer for a commercial classical music station in the country. And she carried on as the host of lecture series and radio shows and as an arts leader after she moved to Sarasota in 2002.”
Congress’s Budget Deal Includes Increases (!) For NEA, NEH
Mind you, they’re not big increases – $2 million (1.33%) each for the NEA and NEH, and flat funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But this is a change from the Trump administration’s proposal to eliminate the agencies entirely. “Like many of Trump’s planned initiatives for his first 100 days in office, however, this plan did not pan out.”
William Hoffman, Playwright (‘As Is’) And Librettist, Dead At 78
“[His] epochal play As Is was in the vanguard of Broadway’s coming to grips with the AIDS epidemic and [he] wrote the groundbreaking libretto for John Corigliano’s opera The Ghosts of Versailles.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.01.17
“Everybody dance now!”
Last night I was at a birthday party for a kid in Rafa’s class … Three [moms] were on their phones, looking at the summer concert schedule at Wolf Trap. Big performing arts center in the DC area, for anyone who doesn’t know it. These were educated, professional women, age around 40, I’d guess. And they were going wild over this show: … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2017-05-01
Whatever happened to International Jazz Day?
April 30 — yesterday — was celebrated as the sixth annual International Jazz Day with a global webcast from Havana, hosted by Will Smith, headlined by pianist Herbie Hancock and including a couple of dozen top notch musicians from six countries. Did you know? … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2017-05-01
Monday Recommendation: Charlie Haden Speaks
Woodard and Haden: Conversations With Charlie Haden (Silman-James)
Interviews transcribed from tape recordings and transformed into print are often boring substitutes for writing. With judicious editing, however, the technique can be illuminating. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-05-01
Christopher Dodd’s Mixed Success Running The Moving Pictures Association Of America
In a major shake-up, the MPAA announced April 25 that Dodd, 73, will be leaving at the end of the year, five months before his contract is up. He’ll be replaced by Charles Rivkin, 55, former assistant Secretary of State for economic and business affairs under President Barack Obama. Studio insiders say they want a fresh approach at the MPAA after a sometimes-bumpy ride for Dodd. “We needed someone who has relationships with everyone,” says one executive.
Trying To Understand Populism? Take Another Look At William Gladstone
Interest has surged in an institution that houses Gladstone’s books and papers and that sees itself as a temple of liberal values, delighting its director, Peter Francis, who believes the trend is a reaction to the rise of populism in Britain.
Translation Programs Have Suddenly Got WAY Better (Here’s Why)
The new system still makes mistakes, but these are now relatively rare, where once they were ubiquitous. It uses an artificial neural network, linking digital “neurons” in several layers, each one feeding its output to the next layer, in an approach that is loosely modelled on the human brain. Neural-translation systems, like the phrase-based systems before them, are first “trained” by huge volumes of text translated by humans. But the neural version takes each word, and uses the surrounding context to turn it into a kind of abstract digital representation. It then tries to find the closest matching representation in the target language, based on what it has learned before. Neural translation handles long sentences much better than previous versions did.
The Maine Of Elizabeth Strout, And The Elizabeth Strout Of Maine
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge “dislikes it when people refer to her as a ‘Maine writer.’ And yet, when asked, ‘What’s your relationship with Maine?’ she replies, ‘That’s like asking me what’s my relationship with my own body. It’s just my DNA.'”
If We’re Going To Have An Internet Of Things – And We Are – It Needs A Code Of Ethics
A leading computer ethicist: “We’re just at the tip of the iceberg in what is arguably going to be a brave new world. And it’s highly heterogenous: We’ll be seeing a lot more autonomous systems, we’ll be seeing enhanced humans and smart systems, devices, and organizations. When you put all of those together, and you start thinking about how to bring out the best of the Internet of Things rather than the worst of the Internet of Things, governance is really the key.”
The Connecticut Ballet Turns 35 With Hope For, Not Fear Of, The Future
Its director: “We’ve made it to middle age. That we are still dancing, still producing ballets and still engaging new audiences is amazing.”