Unlike those who write dry, hyper-specialized academic criticism, Greil Marcus isn’t afraid, as one reader of his once put it, to let “everything remind him of everything else.” While discussing, say, a Bob Dylan B-side, he can suddenly juxtapose a line from one of Abraham Lincoln’s speeches with a particularly biting piece of dialogue from an obscure noir. This intuitive collage of different voices can offer the reader insights that aren’t available otherwise. – The Baffler
Teachers, Want To Get Your Students Interested In Learning Grammar? Start With A Rant
Not your own rant, mind you. A pair of teachers recommends using one of those vehement complaints that turn up every so often in advice columns or blogs. “[The instructors] “note that heated, emotional writing like this is more interesting to students than dry lists of rules to follow. More importantly, rants offer a clear demonstration of how powerful people make judgments — often harsh ones — based on grammar.” – JSTOR Daily
Alex Ross: Connecting With Music Through Tinny Video
“As a critic, I am desperate to maintain contact with what musicians are doing, thinking, and feeling. The sound is often tinny, the stage patter awkward, the home décor distracting. One could instead sample archived professional-quality videos that opera houses, orchestras, and other organizations have placed online. For me, though, the live or freshly recorded happenings matter more. They document, with the oblique power that the arts possess, an extraordinary human phase in history. Their mere existence is bracing, and at times they achieve startling power.” – The New Yorker
How Visual Images Change In The Internet Era
From our present experience of the internet, what changes might we expect? We are all André Malraux now. To create his “museum without walls,” an archive of images from around the world, begun in 1947, he had to collect and sift through thousands of photographs. Now anyone can readily compare any selection of works, setting them side-by-side. – Hyperallergic
Company Creates Drones To Disinfect Theatres
In the innovative system, the disinfectant is stored on the ground, and pumped through a hose to the hovering drone, which then spreads it throughout the theater. Meanwhile, another drone drifts underneath it to make sure that the hose does not get tangled in any of the seats. – Forbes
Truth, Fiction And The Disconnect Of Intelligence
“The dual nature of power and truth results in the curious fact that we humans know many more truths than any other animal, but we also believe in much more nonsense. We are both the smartest and the most gullible inhabitants of planet Earth.” – The New York Times
The Meaning Of Power: An Online Meritocracy?
Today’s internet generations have been graced with equity at birth, in that they have the means to create power for themselves, even if they do not start out with it. In the digital world, the myth of power persists as a construct. To believe that you have power is to have it. – The New York Times
Learning, Remotely, How To Create Theatre Using Virtual Reality
“[A new course at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts] pairs students with professional technologists and artists to explore questions about the future of live performance and technology. Along the way, they collaborate on real-world projects that incorporate virtual and augmented reality, 360-degree capture, and more. … And all of this happens remotely, with the entire class taught in VR using Oculus Quest headsets.” – American Theatre
Cambridge University Moves All Classes Online Until 2021
A Cambridge spokesman told LBC News: “The University is constantly adapting to changing advice as it emerges during this pandemic. Given that it is likely that social distancing will continue to be required, the University has decided there will be no face-to-face lectures during the next academic year. – LBC News
She’s The Serge Diaghilev Of The 21st Century
Beth Morrison and her company have produced dozens of new operas and music-theater works since they launched in 2005, including such prize-winning, audience-thrilling pieces as Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves and Du Yun’s Angel’s Bone. In a Q&A, she talks about how and why she crossed over from singing into production, how she chooses projects, and where she sees the art form heading. (And by the way, “Nothing’s easy about producing opera. Nothing at all. It’s expensive, it’s challenging, everything about it is hard.”) – San Francisco Classical Voice
Sonny Rollins On Music As A Set Of Ideas
“If I want to improvise during “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” for example, first I memorize it. That’s because when I’m performing onstage, I want to let my mind be completely free. “Mary Had a Little Lamb” is there, and I can come back to it if I want, but what I’m creating is greater than the sum of the parts — technical ability, notes, themes — I’ve collected along the way. The song is in the back of my brain where many other things are stored, and in that way, it becomes just another item that I can call upon when I’m playing.” – The New York Times
When Will Broadway Be Back?
Theater owners are the most eager to get Broadway back in gear; top producers are more cautious, since they are the ones who lose their shirts over diminished demand. All acknowledge that the Broadway inventory will have to be smaller and leaner to survive. That’s why Disney Theatrical pulled the plug on “Frozen” on Thursday; they would rather try and sell two family shows in this environment than three. More producers will do the same. – Chicago Tribune
COVID As An Opportunity For The Arts To Reconsider
“Comparing the Covid-19 pandemic with the second world war is a perilous and largely ridiculous game. Yet in purely practical terms, the war was the last time cultural organisations ground entirely to a halt. Robert Skidelsky’s biography of John Maynard Keynes notes that the economist liked to say he used the calm of war to reflect on the turmoil of peace. That reflection led to an entirely new settlement for the arts in Britain – the foundation of the Arts Council of Great Britain, forged from a sense that arts and culture were a way of providing healing and comfort to all of society after a national trauma. This was done in the same political breath as the foundation of the NHS.” – The Guardian
How Live Online Is Evolving
Some performers get their fans involved – whether by taking requests or doing Q&As, virtual charity festivals or tutorials like Duran Duran star John Taylor with his bass masterclasses and Oti Mabuse with her dance lessons. Listening parties have also been a big hit. Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess has carved out a sideline as host of #timstwitterlisteningparty. Fans and musicians listen together in real time, tweeting their thoughts and memories. – BBC
Emotion As A Virus
There is a growing body of scientific evidence showing that our internal mental states, including our emotions, might also be socially transmissible. Understanding the nature and dynamics of this emotional contagion is crucial in highlighting how social interactions might impact on our wellbeing. – Psyche
Billionaire Art Collectors Are Moving Art Out Of Berlin. Why?
Der Tagesspiegel, a local newspaper, saw the departure of the Flick collection as “further proof of Berlin’s gradual metamorphosis from a creative hub into a stronghold for property speculators”. – The Guardian
What Our Social Media Images Say About Our Crisis
“Our images don’t often depict the pandemic explicitly, say with an ambulance or an unusually empty street, but they likely convey how you are feeling through this. Anxiety, grief, boredom, fear, and exhaustion are often the content of social photos right now, even if they don’t depict something like a face mask.” – Artnet
How Technology is Shaping Opera
Opera America had asked me to speak at their annual conference this year, but of course the conference was canceled and moved online. So I made this video for the online conference, talking about the influence of technology on opera and how audience expectations evolve as they use technology. – Douglas McLennan
Fascinating: Brains Of Pokeman Players Light Up Differently Than Those Who Don’t Play
When processed by childhood Pokémon players, the images lit up a small groove in the temporal lobe that remained mostly inactive in the brains of Pokémon newbies. – Aeon
A New Tool That Lets You Curate Digital Shows
ArtUK has released a tool that allows anyone to build, annotate and share their own online show of digital art. Which art? Anything in public collections in the UK, so there’s a lot to choose from. – ArtUK
How You Build A Network Of Women Composers (From Iran, No Less)
Young Iranian composers have set up a network for mentorship, commissioning and presenting. – The New York Times
It Could Be Two Years Until Choirs Can Safely Sing Together Again, And Choral Singers Are Devastated
The moisture that comes out of singers’ mouths and into the air that their fellow singers are breathing seems to be a very efficient way of transmitting coronavirus, as several cases of multiple contagion traced to choirs have shown. And from community-based groups to church and gospel choirs to top professional ensembles like The Crossing, as one director put it, “We grieve.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
Michel Piccoli, Revered Star Of French Screen For Five Decades, Dead At 94
“Even when he was a big name, Piccoli was never too proud to play small supporting roles or even bit parts if he liked the screenplay. But whatever the size of the role, whether playing a goody or a baddie, Piccoli would bring to the character a gravitas (with a tinge of humour) and an ironic detachment, simultaneously revealing a real, recognisable human being beneath the surface.” – The Guardian
How And When Will Texas Arts Organizations Reopen? They Have No Idea, Thanks To The Governor
“North Texas arts organizations tuned in eagerly at 2 p.m. Monday to hear Gov. Greg Abbott’s address regarding ‘Phase Two’ of the effort to reopen the state’s economy, which, they thought, would include them. But the governor pulled off a bit of a stunner in not addressing performing arts organizations at all. He gave guidance to youth sports camps, summer camps, Little League baseball and professional sports” — even indoor rodeo. But not the arts. – The Dallas Morning News
Shakespeare’s Globe Warns It Could Go Bankrupt Without Government Help
“Despite being well-managed, well governed, and – crucially – able to operate without public subsidy,” says the statement, “we will not be able to survive this crisis,” the coronavirus epidemic, without rescue funding from the British government. In fact, it’s the lack of public subsidy that’s the problem: it means the Globe is not eligible for Arts Council England’s emergency support. – The Guardian