“Hitchcock remembered that his early work had taught him to ‘change the way audiences read an action or an expression by changing the intertitle’.” Anna Aslanyan explains how that concept reached an apotheosis in the Soviet release of the 1922 British silent Three Live Ghosts.
Will Virtual Reality Technology Change Our Perceptions Of What’s Real?
“Along with transforming everyday life, a VR revolution could fundamentally change how we understand and define what is real.”
Writers Will Steal Your Life And Use It For Their Books
“I was nonplussed by this awful reaction. I had borrowed certain traits, gestures, tricks of speech and various mannerisms from members of the family, but had fixed them on to characters with very different careers and past lives.”
Choosing The Right New Ballet – And The Right Title
“People don’t know that it’s a ballet, but you can imagine it – because it’s all dark passion, love and landscape – that it sounds really interesting.”
National Theatre Sneakily Does Away With Plus Ones For Reviewers
“On a press relations level, the move smacked of sour grapes – a retaliatory swipe at Fleet Street for not cooing over every offering in Rufus Norris’s strong but hardly faultless first year. On a pecuniary level, it’s hard to see how redistributing that modest allocation to other (presumably online) outlets in the name of broadening critical diversity and bringing in new audiences stacks up.”
Why Lindy West Feeds The Trolls
“I don’t care about ‘feed the trolls’ versus ‘don’t feed the trolls.’ I care about me, and what makes me feel better. And sometimes what makes me feel better is just making fun of some jackass. … And it’s important to me that these people know that harassing me online is not a consequence-free hobby.”
The Filmmaker Who Casts Only Cardboard Actors
“[Guy] Brunet makes his own actors and builds his film sets from found cardboard boxes that he cuts and paints. He paints film posters on old architectural plans and other large paper scraps that he tapes together. He also writes his own screenplays, lends his voice to all the characters in his movies, and even draws the DVD covers for his films.”
‘It’s Cheap Words I Hate, And I Hate Adverbs’
Christian Lorentzen: “Let’s begin with the big problem. The adverb is an incoherent lexical category, a catchall. How are ‘there,’ ‘yesterday,’ ‘quite,’ ‘assiduously,’ and ‘indeed’ all members of the same family?”
Itzhak Perlman Cancels A North Carolina Appearance Because Of The State’s New Bigotry Laws
“It is discriminatory — and it’s not just about bathrooms. It’s about dignity, like [U.S. Attorney General] Loretta Lynch said. I’ve been an advocate of equality for the disabled, and this is just another situation in which this is the subject. We are dealing with the equality and dignity of citizens.”
They’ve Found A Prop From The Original Production Of ‘Romeo And Juliet’
“Archaeologists excavating the playhouse where Romeo and Juliet was first staged have found artefacts that could have been used during the iconic play’s original production.”
‘Jazz Shouldn’t Be Something People Do As A Painful Process Of Cultural Education’
Ted Gioia talks to Scott Timberg: “Jazz shouldn’t be a kind of nutritional supplement. … This music is exciting. … In every step of its evolution jazz shook up things, and not just the music world, it shook up the culture.”
Are Cultural Organizations Really Reaching Low-Income Visitors? A Look At The Numbers
Colleen Dilenschneider: “Data suggest that some types of cultural organizations are perceived as more welcoming than others. Here’s how we could do better.”
Our Brains Are Not Computers And Don’t Work Like Them (Why Do Some People Find This Hard To, Er, Process?)
“Our shoddy thinking about the brain has deep historical roots, but the invention of computers in the 1940s got us especially confused. For more than half a century now, psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists and other experts on human behaviour have been asserting that the human brain works like a computer.” Robert Epstein reminds us of the (enormous) differences.
Innovative, Influential Biographer Of Mozart And Wagner Dies At 90
Robert W. Gutman’s “Wagner book, which placed its subject in the larger intellectual context of his times, infuriated idolaters, for whom the master could do no wrong.”
Susan Sarandon’s Plan For Retirement? Directing Female-Friendly Porn
“I have threatened, in my 80s, to direct porn. I haven’t watched enough to know what the problems are. Most pornography is brutal and doesn’t look pleasurable from a female point of view. So I’ve been saying that when I no longer want to act, I want to do that.”
Richard Thomas Will Never Stop Being John-Boy, But Now He’s Jimmy Carter Too
“I’ve never been interested in obliterating John-Boy. I loved that character and show. Families come up to me now with very young children who watch the show, and it thrills me. I’m very happy that John-Boy is still up in his room writing on his tablets for a lot of people.” [Warning: This story contains spoilers for Season 4 of The Americans.]
What Do Regular Folks Who Visit The Barnes Foundation Think? (That’s What Dr. Barnes Cared About)
“Barnes (1872-1951) feuded with the art establishment of his day and disliked most art historians and academic aestheticians. It was the unschooled lover of art he welcomed to his great art collection grounds in Lower Merion.” Now that his collection has been in central Philadelphia for four years, “in Barnes’ egalitarian spirit, we asked visitors, ‘What do you like the most – and why?'” (includes video)
More Favorites From Visitors To The Barnes Foundation
“Matt Hanczaryk, 39, a South Philly self-described recovering Catholic and indiscriminate existentialist, says: ‘I was walking around the galleries like I was in a beautiful funeral, then I saw her and it woke me from that reverie.'”
Is Snapchat The Closest Thing (On Our Phones) To Pure Emotional Communication?
“This is not to say that text is irredeemable. A significant humanization of our text interactions happened quietly in 2011, when emoji were introduced as part of an Apple iOS software update. They offered a palette of punctuation that clarified intent. Tacking on emoji like hearts, skulls, grins and bugged-out eyes to a short message made it infinitely easier to confidently project sarcasm, humor, grief and love across a medium that had been, until then, emotionally arid.”
The Director Who Failed At Painting And Acting, Survived A Stabbing And Changed The Theatre World
“In fusing two cultures, Mr. Ninagawa injected modern music, Buddhist imagery, indigenous Japanese flora and teeming spectacles into classic plays. Yet he remained faithful to the text.”
Robin Wright Fought For Equal Pay With Kevin Spacey For ‘House Of Cards’ – And Won
“I was looking at statistics and Claire Underwood’s character was more popular than [Frank’s] for a period of time. So I capitalized on that moment. I was like, ‘You better pay me or I’m going to go public.’ And they did.”
Brazil’s New President Abolishes Culture Ministry
“Acting President Michel Temer, who took over last week after president Dilma Rousseff’s suspension for an impeachment trial, has cut the number of ministries from 32 to 23 in a measure he says will help streamline a bloated government. However merging the culture portfolio into the education ministry has provoked a storm of protest led by the country’s cultural elite.”
What The Canadian Opera/National Post Review-Spiking Affair Portends
“I don’t think anyone will notice the difference soon, but it will be arts organisations like the COC who will lose most from the absence of critics in the mainstream press.”
SF Opera Music Director Nicola Luisotti To Step Down
The 55-year-old conductor announced that he won’t renew his contract when it expires at the end of the 2017-2018 season. He said, “I want the company’s General Director Designate Matthew Shilvock to be able to move freely into the future.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.18.16
Artists and Relationship Building
There is a lot of work right now on building demand, value and interest in the contributions of art and artists to places, social change, economies and communities. This is the long overdue work … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-05-17
Is This How It Ends?
Tiffany Mills titled her latest work After the Feast, and the program note for its premiere during the annual La MaMa Moves! Festival asks the spectators to imagine: “an urban dystopia caused by vanishing resources.” In my mind, that includes … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2016-05-18
Art Museum Day’s Odd Couples: Corcoran/GWU, MASS MoCA/Crystal Bridges, Smithsonian/Hebrew University
In the provocative spirit of CultureGrrl, come join me, faithful art-lings, in an unconventional commemoration of Art Museum Day, spotlighting some unlikely pairings that have recently hit the news. Whether conceived in a spirit of … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-05-18
Recent Listening In Brief, Part 3: Strassmayer & Mondlak
Karolina Strassmayer & Drori Mondlak — Klaro!, Of Mystery and Beauty (Lilypad) From the drama of the album’s opening cymbal splashes to the fading piano notes at its end, alto saxophonist and flutist Strassmayer and drummer Mondlak … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-05-18
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