Oboist Nicholas Daniel: “This week, singer Andrew Watts and I will make our fourth attempt to give the world premiere of Sir John Tavener’s La Noche Oscura. The most surprising part of this is not that three scheduled performances have been cancelled over the last 12 difficult months, but that the work is getting its first performance [only now].” – The Guardian
NPR Cancels ‘Ask Me Another’
“More than 300 stations air the show, hosted by comedian and writer Ophira Eisenberg and featuring Jonathan Coulton as in-house musician. … However, ‘despite the strong work of the team, AMA never quite found its full audience,’ [NPR SVP Anya] Grundmann wrote, ‘and because of our limited resources, we’re sunsetting the show.’ The last episode will feed the weekend of Sept. 24.” – Current
A History Of America As Told Through Its Self-Help Books
These “secular bibles” (the Bible is not one of them) are “books for daily life that ostensibly taught readers one subject, all while subtly instructing them about their role in society and their responsibilities to family and to country.” – The New York Times
Battle Of The Book Blurbs
The hyperbole on book jackets—both the plot summaries and the lists of adulatory adjectives that go with them—have long frustrated authors, but no one would dispute that a good blurb has crucial functions. – Prospect
What’s So Difficult About The Color Violet?
“Over the past 20 years, I visited 193 museums in 42 different countries. Equipped with 1,500 Munsell colour chips – the world-standard samples for colour science – I examined 139,892 works of art, searching for violet.” – Psyche
Robert Quackenbush, Who Wrote Stories Of Detectives With Feathers Or Fur, Dead At 91
“His stories about Miss Mallard, an inquisitive duck who solves crimes around the world in plots that resemble Agatha Christie capers, were adapted into an animated television series in 2000. He also conceived of sleuthing critters like Sheriff Sally Gopher and Sherlock Chick, who starts his investigations immediately after hatching from an egg (he emerges holding a magnifying glass). … For his work on Detective Mole, who wears a trench coat and houndstooth deerstalker hat, he received an Edgar Allan Poe Award for best juvenile mystery in 1982.” – The New York Times
Reconciling With Cezanne
You don’t look at a Cézanne, some ravishing late works excepted. You study it, registering how it’s done—in the drawings, with tangles of line and, often, patches of watercolor. – The New Yorker
How Did This Pair Of 17th-Century Paintings End Up In The Dumpster At A Highway Rest Stop?
A 64-year-old man spotted the artworks — a 1665 self-portrait by Pietro Bellotti and a painting of a youth by the 17th-century Dutch artist Samuel van Hoogstraten — in the garbage of a rest stop in Bavaria in mid-May. Authorities have not identified the owner of the canvases and have appealed to the public for information. – Artnet
How To Repurpose Those Office Skyscrapers?
Instead of designing buildings for specific purposes that may fade or disappear, architects and developers should create buildings that can accommodate a variety of uses, from offices to residential spaces to hotels to healthcare facilities. Towers should be designed to be neutral. – Fast Company
How Ancient Jungle Cities Kept Reinventing
Not only did societies such as the Classic Maya and the Khmer empire of Cambodia flourish, but pre-colonial tropical cities were actually some of the most extensive urban landscapes anywhere in the pre-industrial world – far outstripping ancient Rome, Constantinople/Istanbul and the ancient cities of China. – The Guardian
Kazuo Ishiguro On Whether Literature Really Deserves To Have A Nobel Prize
“I want to say, of course literature is just as important [as the sciences and peace], but this is something in the dead of night I kind of worry about. … I’ve been saying for years, if you take away reading, take away literature, you take away something very, very important in the way we human beings communicate with each other. … We’ve got to be able to tell each other what it feels like to be in different kinds of situations. Otherwise, we don’t know what to do with our knowledge.” – The Washington Post
Lessons About Learning From Failure
Many workplaces now lionise (whether sincerely or not is another matter) the importance of learning through failure, and of creating environments that encourage this. – 3 Quarks Daily
What If You Were Unable To Form Any Mental Images?
Aphantasia is a recently-identified variation of human experience affecting 2-5% of the population, in which a person is unable to generate mental imagery. Can you still be an artist? – The Conversation
Leaked Letter: Artists And Former Directors Lobbied To Close Kneehigh Theatre This Year
“Without its creative leadership in place, we believe that Kneehigh’s chapter in history has come to an end. – The Stage
Made Up Places For Real Interactions
What if cultural endeavors, particularly the public and the performative, are themselves a form of political action? – 3 Quarks Daily
Is It Okay To Resell An NFT Artwork If You’re The Artist?
Part of the problem with NFTs is that there is not yet any shared culture around reproductions or derivative works of short video, animations, or audio-visual works that derive their primary profit potential from NFT sales. – Slate
Why John Newbery Is Considered The Father Of Children’s Books
Beginning in 1744, he published about 100 storybooks for children, plus magazines and “ABC” books, becoming the leading children’s publisher of his time. – Washington Post
Motion Picture Academy Elects Most Diverse, Gender-Balanced Board In Its History
The elections increase the number of women on the organization’s 54-member board from 26 to 31, marking the first time in the group’s 94-year history that its board has been majority female. The number of governors from underrepresented racial and ethnic communities increases from 12 to 15. – Los Angeles Times
If The U.S. Won’t Do Another Federal Theatre Project, The States Should
“With state-based funding for the regional theatre system, we could return to a repertory model with full-time employment for actors and serve our local audiences better than a national program ever could. In doing so, we could establish a secure, socially just work environment for the American theatre artists of the 21st century.” – American Theatre
Documentaries That Compete For An Oscar May No Longer Compete For An Emmy, Period
The decision by the Television Academy settles the questions over “double-dipping,” where a documentary that entered Oscar competition but did not get a nomination was (if it was later aired on television, as many are) allowed to submit for Emmy consideration. In an unrelated matter, the Academy also made a minor but notable change with respect to gendered acting awards. – Variety
Outgoing Boston Symphony CEO Mark Volpe Admits In So Many Words That He Fired James Levine
“I sat with him and explained we couldn’t go forward. And I said, ‘You know, you’re a phenomenal teacher.’ And he looks at me. He says, ‘I only live to conduct.’ And then he says, ‘You’re telling me something?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m telling you, Jimmy, it’s done. We’re over.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘No one’s ever told me I can’t do something.’ Jimmy and I never said another word to each other.” – The New York Times
The Industry, Yuval Sharon’s Opera Company In L.A., Adds Two Artistic Directors
Sharon, the MacArthur fellow who founded the company in 2012 and who became artistic director of Michigan Opera Theatre in Detroit last September, isn’t leaving the Industry. But, in what he describes as a deliberate effort to make the organization more diverse on a managerial as well as an artistic level, he and the board have taken on two co-artistic directors, composer Ashley Fure and interdisciplinary artist Malik Gaines. – Los Angeles Times
Banksy Loses More Trademarks In Europe
“The European Union’s intellectual property office just reinforced last month’s invalidation of a trademark owned by the British street artist Banksy. The latest rulings issued from the office’s ‘cancellation department’ this morning relate to two of the anonymous artist’s most famous images, Radar Rat and Girl with an Umbrella. The judgment was made in favor of Full Colour Black, a U.K. greeting card company which recreates Banksy’s works for sale.” – Artnet
Venice Will Go On UNESCO’s Endangered List If It Doesn’t Ban Cruise Ships
In March, the Italian central government issued a long-awaited decree barring cruise ships from the historic city, citing the damage that the enormous vessels do to the lagoon and the increased danger of flooding in the city that damage causes. Then, earlier this month, one of the behemoths sailed right into the Venice lagoon anyway. Now UNESCO is giving something between a warning and an ultimatum. – The Guardian
How To Make Audiobook Narrators More Diverse?
Most novels feature characters with an assortment of different backgrounds, and this can require narrators to voice characters with identities very different from their own. – Slate