ArtsJournal - Newsside

Top Posts From AJBlogs 06.26.17

AJBlogs Posted:

Art for ____________’s sake. What would you fill in?
A few weeks back I was in NYC and had the opportunity to attend a Public Forum event featuring the brilliant Jeremy McCarter … Toward the end of the evening McCarter turned to the rather large panel of activists and artists he had assembled and asked them to reflect on the phrase “Art for Art’s Sake.” There was an awkward silence. … read more
AJBlog: Jumper Published 2017-06-25

A New American Home for Italian Contemporary Art
There’s a new kid on the art block in the Hudson River Valley–Magazzino, in Cold Spring, about an hour and 45 minutes north of New York City. I went up to attend its opening on … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-06-26

“On Deadline with Gabe Pressman”: My Starstruck 1973 Profile of the Late Dean of NYC TV Reporters
Back in 1973, clutching a masters degree in journalism from Columbia, I decided to take the class that Gabe Pressman gave at the New School. This “indefatigable dean of New York’s television reporters” (as described … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-06-26

Monday Recommendation: A Captivating Book Of Photos
Jean-Pierre Leloir, Jazz Images (Elemental)
Jean-Pierre Leloir, who died in 2010, left a remarkable legacy of photographs from his work in the years when France was a destination for, and in a … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-06-26

Butterflies in the spotlight
Like many other major newspapers, The Wall Street Journal has started presenting special events for its subscribers. The editors approached me a few weeks ago about taking part in a theatrical event, a post-show talkback … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2017-06-26

 

A New App Sends Notes On The Music To Your Phone While The Orchestra Plays

MUSIC Posted:

Yes, really: The idea is to look at your phone, with the app open, during the concert. “The app, Octava, is intended to ‘assist the participant through a musical journey,’ with Chris Evans, director of press and marketing at RPO, saying its tone is ‘specifically aimed towards new and potentially younger audiences.'”

‘Jane Eyre’ May Have Been Written As A Coded, Secret Love Letter

WORDS Posted:

Charlotte Brontë was facing two crises: Her father’s health was in trouble, and she had for years been in love with a married, and uninterested, man. “The unstated fantasy driving the writing of Jane Eyre, which she began drafting nine months later, was in all likelihood to create a novel of romantic love that would achieve—through imagination—the fantasy fulfillment of an adulterous passion that was never to be hers. It would be a letter to him. At least in a novel, Brontë could have the heroine voice her own feelings, addressing them not to Heger but to the fictional Fairfax Rochester.”

Audiobooks: They’re Just As Good As ‘Real’ Books

WORDS Posted:

Seriously though, think of The Iliad. “Our cultural anxiety about audiobooks may have deeper roots in media and educational history, dating as far back as the beginning of the Enlightenment period, when the West made a general shift towards the privileging of sight over the other senses. After all, oral storytelling predates print and writing by thousands of years.”

Before The Internet

IDEAS Posted:

“You would lean against the lockers with a faraway expression on your face and let people assume whatever they wanted. Like that you were a girly girl but could also be a tomboy. Or that back in your home town you’d been friends with a bunch of crows. And everyone assumed that if they saw a crow it probably knew you, because you had some kind of understanding with crows owing to undefined telepathic abilities that made you look troubled now and then but also really important. And if anyone wanted to track down an old friend of yours and write her an actual letter to find out if any of this was true, well, best of luck to them.”