“After talking about renovations for more than a decade, business and arts leaders say, quick action is needed to prevent the buildings from falling further into disrepair and to avoid ever-higher maintenance and construction costs.”
So Many People Seem To Need Pocahontas, Even After Four Centuries
Laurie Gwen Shapiro travels to Historic Jamestowne for the 400th anniversary reenactment of Pocahontas’s wedding to English settler John Rolfe – and finds the chieftain’s daughter is still important to a surprising variety of individuals, from tourism officials (of course) to archaeologists to First-Families-of-Virginia aristocrats to native tribes still trying to get Federal recognition.
We Have ‘Twin Peaks’ To Thank For Our Current ‘Golden Age Of TV’
“Many of the defining aspects of Twin Peaks can seem clichéd today: Its narrative intricacy, its darkness, its reliance on antiheroes. But that’s just because we are by now so used to the show’s sensibility in our televised diet. What set this show apart [in 1990] has so thoroughly been assimilated that talking about it is like pointing to the sky and calling it blue.”
‘Market Populism’ And Casey Kasem
Scott Timberg argues that the late American Top 40 host has ” been drafted posthumously into a war he never fought, and become a symbol in a debate in which he never took a side.”
Your Moral Calculus Changes When You Use It In A Second Language
Researchers have found an interesting twist on the famous “trolley problem” (should you kill one person in order to save five?) thought experiment: people answer it differently when it’s posed in a second language rather than in their mother tongue.
‘Lost’ Cole Porter Musical Unearthed
“If Broadway shows can disappear after their first and only production, why would a nightclub show have any afterlife? … And back in 1928, Cole Porter was nothing. He was lucky he got the job.”
David Mamet’s People Send A Letter Forcing A Theatre To Cancel ‘Oleanna’ After One Performance
“The firm sent the cease-and-desist letter Friday, the day that reviews of the show appeared online and revealed the company’s casting decision — a decision that the company went to unusual lengths to keep hidden before opening curtain.”
In New York, A Confluence Of Revivals Means Asian American Actors Are In Demand
“More plays and musicals are also telling stories from Asian viewpoints, a long-held goal of Asian-American artists. And increasingly, Asians are landing roles that traditionally go to non-Asian actors.”
That Time Tim Robbins Stepped In To Perform In Midsummer Night’s Dream in Beijing
“While the appetite for theater, including Western-style spoken drama, as it is known in Chinese, has been growing, particularly among the young, the rise in foreign productions is a relatively recent phenomenon.”
Fan Fiction Can Be A (Very) Big Deal
A 25-year-old Texan woman just got a six-figure book deal, movie deal, and jewelry deal for her (erotic) fan fiction about one member of an English-Irish boy pop band.
The 70-Year-Old Woman Who Voices Minnie Mouse (And Married The Voice Of Mickey)
“Taylor quickly squished herself between her mother and Disney. ‘The sweetest thing of all is at one point he said, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” I said, “I want to work for you.”‘”
Music Charts In The UK Will Now Include Streaming Services
“In a sense, it’s a lot fairer, because the chart becomes a measurement of the genuine excitement around certain songs, and how that changes over time even after people have started to listen privately.”
Top AJBlogs Posts From 06.22.14
Why The Morgan’s Roger Wieck Is A Surprising Proselytizer
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-06-23
Jazz and Starbucks
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-06-20
Weekend Extra: Catching Up With Darcy James Argue
AJBlog: RiffTides | Published 2014-06-21
Dynamic pricing at the zoo
AJBlog: For What it’s Worth | Published 2014-06-20
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The Future Of The Digital Book? No One Actually Knows
After a book hackathon in London: “This has to be the beginning of a long marriage between these two worlds and not just the post-coital euphoria of a dirty weekend.”
Georgian Opera Star Says The Deeply Homophobic Screed On Her Facebook Was Actually Written By Her Husband
“After the controversy re-emerged this weekend, Iveri issued a statement saying she was ‘shocked and saddened to be called homophobic’ – and that it wasn’t her fault.”