“All my ancestors were healers and performed rituals, even my surname Guslyak means ‘sorcerer’. Once a day my body convulses for 15-20 minutes. Reality changes in this condition and it takes special powers in order to return to normality. I still don’t understand everything.”
Dancing The Struggles Of Rio’s Slums
Sonia Destri Lie, founder of the contemporary urban/hip-hop troupe Companhia Urbana de Dança: “We looked at photos of protests, of the bodies of people killed by the police, and we started dancing this, improvising.”
Bringing A British “American Psycho” To New York (It’s Scarier Than Patrick Bateman)
“Patrick Bateman has been haunting the theater director Rupert Goold lately. And it’s not just the ax, chain saw, and nail gun that Bateman uses on flashy A-listers … No, Mr. Goold is preoccupied with getting Bateman right for the Off Broadway run of his musical adaptation of American Psycho this winter after suffering mixed reviews during the world premiere at [London’s] Almeida Theatre.”
Now Philly’s Fringe Festival Has A Fringe Of Its Own
Fringe/Fringe “was conceived by Joshua McLucas, 21, a Swarthmore College senior who thought the 18-year-old Fringe Festival, and even its little sister, the Neighborhood Fringe, were just too mainstream, too big, and too expensive for his fledgling [redacted] Theater Company.”
Do Black Composers Still Face A Racial Divide? If So, Where Does It Come From?
African-American composers of three generations weigh in, as does Detroit Symphony music director Leonard Slatkin.
We Have Too Many Bogus Plagiarism Scandals
Laura Miller argues that few of us realize “just how commonplace plagiarism charges are, how thin most of the evidence is and how poorly the average person understands the nature of the transgression. … We’re a plagiarism-obsessed society, partly because we know how much damage we can do to someone’s career and life by accusing them of it, but largely because so many of us don’t really grasp what plagiarism is.”
Hachette CEO’s Response To Amazon’s Email Campaign: Why We Price Books The Way We Do
“Hachette CEO Michael Pietsch has received ‘a few emails’ in response to a call earlier this weekend by Amazon to contact the executive, demanding he and his company give in to the retailer’s demands for lower ebook prices. In response to those emails, Pietsch is sending the below note.” [full text provided]
Why Garrison Keillor Opened A Bookstore In St. Paul
“The neighborhood bookstore shut down, and that left a gap in the lives of a lot of people – without it, they had to go to Minneapolis to buy books, and that makes no sense – Minneapolis is where you go to see documentary films or lectures on urban planning or dances with titles like Dimensions of Being.”
Now Amazon Is Fighting With Disney, Blocking Pre-Orders
“Amazon isn’t accepting pre-orders of forthcoming Disney DVD and Blu-ray titles including Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Maleficent. It is the same tactic Amazon has employed in a bitter four-month spat with Hachette Book Group over e-book pricing.”
Who’s The Brazilian Guy Who’s Buying Up The Entire World’s Vinyl LPs?
Zero Freitas, 62, is a São Paulo transportation magnate “who, since he was a child, has been unable to stop buying records. ‘I’ve gone to therapy for 40 years to try to explain this to myself,’ he said.”
Your Brain Needs Vacations (Seriously)
“If you’re feeling overwhelmed, there’s a reason: The processing capacity of the conscious mind is limited. This is a result of how the brain’s attentional system evolved.” (Simple daydreaming definitely counts as brain vacation, but it’s not. enough.)
Is This America’s Ideal Theater Company?
“So often in my conversations with artistic directors I’m dismayed by their willingness to accept the status quo. If mindless musicals are what draws in the crowds, then mindless musical it will be … Box office becomes confused with artistic merit, making it easier to let fiscal expediency dictate taste.” But Charles McNulty has found one house that’s getting it right.
Disgraced Delaware Art Museum Selling Yet More Art
The AAMD sanctioned the museum in June for selling a piece from its collection to raise funds. Now that it’s already in museum-Siberia anyway, the DAM has decided to auction off two more works: Winslow Homer’s Milking Time and Alexander Calder’s The Black Crescent.