Yes, the late television newsman, notorious in the art world for his supremely snarky 1993 60 Minutes segment “Yes, But Is It Art?”, was himself a painter, and just last year he sent a package of his work to a famously uninhibited art critic.
Our Best Chance Of Getting People To Pay Attention To Climate Change? Science Fiction
“Our most persuasive medium for shifting opinion on climate change seem to be a certain kind of novel, and a certain kind of documentary film — specifically, the kind of doomsaying we find in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Truth is always stranger than fiction, but only fiction can frame life events as teachable moments.”
‘We Design The Stuff You Feel, Not The Stuff You See’
Environmental design firm Atelier Ten has developed ingenious schemes like a thermal air storage system inspired by ancient Roman ventilation networks that sent naturally cool air from caves into villas.
Future Of The Arts? Festivals Not Buildings
“Given the economic costs and risks, why do museums, stadiums and other “concrete culture” receive such a privileged place in urban development? After spending the past 10 years conducting research on the topic, I’ve found that this privilege should end; as an alternative, cities should champion music festivals as a cheaper, adaptable way to bolster urban communities.”
The First Rape On The Ballet Stage
“Ballet sex wasn’t invented by the choreo¬grapher Kenneth MacMillan – Mikhail Fokine, Roland Petit and Frederick Ashton had all included episodes of startling sensuality in their work – but The Invitation, with its frank depiction of rape, broke new and dangerous ground when the Royal Ballet’s touring company premiered it in 1960.”
Study: Our Music Preferences Say Much About Us
Participants were given 36 evaluative terms (including sad, happy, angry, intelligent, and sophisticated), and judged the extent to which each excerpt fit the description. Analyzing the results, the researchers determined the musical snippets could be effectively categorized on three basic scales: “arousal,” “valence,” and “depth.”
A Stand-Mate Pays Tribute To The World’s Longest-Serving Orchestral Player
Michael Kurth on his Atlanta Symphony colleague, Jane Little, who died earlier this month at age 87: “When I feel sore and weary after a day of playing the bass, I remind myself that if an 87-year-old cancer patient with a broken vertebra who weighs 90 pounds soaking wet can do it, maybe I should stop whining and get back to work.”
How To Acknowledge Your Manuscript Will Never Be A Novel – And Move On
“That’s not to say that it hasn’t been fun. We got together in the summer of 2012. You were a short story, a few thousand glorious words, but I wanted you to be more. Every fiction writer thinks they need to be in a long-term relationship.”
The Wascally Wabbit That Inspired A Generation Of Opera Singers
“Those of us who didn’t freak at the sight of a rabbit in a winged helmet sliding off of the back of a fat horse—we went into opera.”
Is Richard Serra’s Legacy Making Us Forget His Brilliance?
“Steel is a dying industry, and mining it can be hazardous for the environment, but discussing the carbon footprint of Mr. Serra’s project is beside the point. The important question, in terms of his legacy, is whether new versions of this work have relevance.”
In 2016, People Seem To Want More Books – And More Bookstores
Judy Blume “doesn’t have to write because, at 78, she has embarked on a new career: she’s an independent bookseller. Together with her husband, George Cooper, she has opened a small, nonprofit bookshop in Key West, Florida, where she’s working almost every day. And she’s loving it.”
Uncovering – And Then Creating – A Story That Was So Wild It Seemed Fake
“‘I thought, oh my God, what is this we’re hearing here?’ Ms. Shetterly said, recalling the moment a few years back when her father, a retired research scientist, casually mentioned Ms. Johnson’s life work. Her next thought: Why haven’t we heard about it before?”
Musicians’ Union Files Unfair Labor Practices Charge Against Kalamazoo Symphony
“Start said the two sessions per day creates an undue hardship on many musicians because many do other work – with other musical groups or in jobs not related to music – to make their living.”
Manhattan’s Spiraling Rents Are Killing Off One Of Its Best Art Spaces
“The closing of 38 Greene feels like the end of an era, partly because it reflects the threat posed by the gold-coasting of Manhattan to its alternative spaces — among them the excellent White Columns on West 13th Street. Now facing the ends of leases, profit-hungry landlords and the like, these spaces are seers. They have a nerve and flexibility absent from museums and commercial galleries. Their nurturing of non-mainstream artists and collectives is essential to a living art world.”
The Museum Of London Opens A New, Massive Site
“There are already more than 6m objects in the Museum of London, the largest urban history collection in the world, but its director, Sharon Ament, is acquiring a few more: a row of derelict shops, several tonnes of salt, a giant Edwardian gas burner, an entire street, and a working train line.”
If Films Want To Qualify For The Oscars, They Can’t Be Seen As ‘Television’
“A documentary feature must be released in L.A. County or the borough of Manhattan in New York City and play at least four times a day within a certain window of showtimes on those days. (This is to prevent someone potentially renting a theater to play to empty houses early in the morning or the middle of the night.) And a feature documentary must also get a review from a movie critic — ‘a television critic review will not be accepted,’ read the rules — in either the L.A. or N.Y. Times.”
A 52-Year-Old Ballerina Blows Her Holographic Younger Self Away
“It’s delightful enough that this ad gives us time to savor Ferri in motion, with her liquid smoothness and undiminished grace. But the ad also puts forth a meaningful narrative about looking back at one’s youth, and realizing that now is even better.”
Virginia Arts Commission Members Threaten To Defund Museum Over ‘Anti-Christian’ Works
“The offending works are the pop-surrealist artist [Mark Rylan]’s ‘Fountain’ (2003) and ‘Rosie’s Tea Party’ (2005), which both show young, doll-like girls in unsettling scenes: In the former, a figure cradles her own head as blood springs from her neck; in the latter, a girl is surrounded by an assortment of meats and slicing a hunk of ham inscribed with the papal encyclical ‘Mystici corporis Christi.'”
What’s It Like To Be An Editor, Really?
“The industry in general is waking up belatedly and slowly to the real benefits of having diversity in staffing. … I mean, it’s a plus to have a Spanish speaker and reader on your staff. Not to have one but to have multiple. It’s a plus to have people reading more diversely and understanding different cultural experiences.
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Live All-Nude Shakespeare In Central Park! (Yes, Really)
“This is an all-woman, fully nude, abridged adaptation of William Shakespeare’s final play The Tempest, … produced by the Outdoor Co-Ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society.” (Remember them?) But you’ve missed the last show, we’re afraid …
The First-Ever $100,000 Chamber Music Prize Has A Winner
The grand prize at the inaugural M-Prize Chamber Arts Competition, held at the University of Michigan, was won by the Calidore String Quartet of New York. The competition, created by Sphinx Competition founder Aaron Dworkin, has divisions for strings and winds as well as an open category which covers percussion groups, mixed ensembles, and other combinations.
What Separates Film From TV, Really?
“The nature of visual storytelling has changed and the lines that once clearly divided film from television or, for that matter, broadcast television from cable, cable from streaming, streaming from Internet, are fading, often to nonexistence.”
Is Translation, As It Wins Literary Prize Money, Finally Being Recognized As An Art?
“Something skewed does occur during the translation process, at least when you are translating a good book: as a translator, while you pick away at the prose and twist the kaleidoscope of possible meanings to create the most subjective and vital translation you can, you become closer to the book than the author, who is often usually already onto the next project. You become the book’s guardian.”
What This Founder Of The Tribeca Film Festival Wants
“You have to create a safe environment for everybody — both on the set and in the office — to come together and do their best work. You want them to emit that spark of light, like a firefly, but they may have to go back and forth and back and forth, changing their mind before they do.”
The Art World Is Still Sorting Out WWII As Looted Antiquities Are Found In Moscow
“They were among some 2 million works that Russian soldiers took as ‘reparations,’ from Germany near the end of the war. Following two fires at the Bode, where the works were ironically stowed for their own protection, Germany presumed many of the works were destroyed.”