“Before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, the Aztecs had a philosophically rich culture, with people they called ‘philosophers’, and their specious counterparts the ‘sophists’. We have volumes and volumes of Aztec thought recorded by Christian clergymen in codices” – and it can bear comparison with the Greeks and Romans. Sebastian Purcell gives a basic introduction.
CEO Who Stabilized Atlanta’s Woodruff Arts Center Is Stepping Down
Virginia Hepner arrived at the Woodruff, which includes the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Alliance Theatre and the High Museum of Art, in May of 2012 – at a point when the ASO was going through financial woes and bitter labor battles and a Woodruff employee had embezzled $1 million. She’ll be leaving it in much better shape next May.
Live-Streaming Is Absolutely Huge In China, And It’s The ‘Loser Generation’ That’s Fueling It
“Currently, about 46 percent of China’s 710 million internet users watch young people, mostly girls, sing, dance, and eat bananas erotically (OK, that has been banned) live on the internet.” The demographic that performs for the webcams, and that watches it, calls itself diaosi – losers.
The Man Who Brought Western Classical Music To South Korea
San Francisco Symphony violinist Kum Mo Kim, who’s currently touring South Korea with the orchestra, shares the story of her father, John S. Kim, who founded the country’s first symphony orchestra and, during the Korean War, was discovered by no less than the Vice President of The United States, who brought him to the U.S. to study.
Rosamond Bernier, Best Art Lecturer Ever, Dead At 100
“In 1971, the Met booked her for four art lectures. Audiences were enthralled. She became one of the hottest tickets in town.” And that was just the beginning.
America Is Becoming Like Ionesco’s ‘Rhinoceros’
Teju Cole lays out the parallels.
How A Technical Writer Created The Award-Winning Short Story That The Movie ‘Arrival’ Is Based On
Ted Chiang writes so slowly that he spent five years researching linguistics before coming out with “Story of Your Life.”
Can The Canadian National Ballet Move The Cultural Conversation As It Turns 65?
Or is it just another ad for sequined pointe shoes with no meaning? “It is with both bewilderment and sadness that one might look over the National Ballet of Canada’s 2016/17 season and think: What can be considered vital among it? What conversations can these ballets possibly provoke?”
How Toronto Finally Learned To Love Its Street Art
Former mayor Rob Ford led such an attack on graffiti that artists fought back with a fierce clarity – and city officials decided to start paying artists instead of fining them.
Post-Trump Election, Our TV Political Dramas Are Looking A Bit Haggard
“The powerful women in or near the Oval Office on Scandal, Veep, Madam Secretary and House of Cards, who until Nov. 8 seemed to reflect or be just a step ahead of the news, now seem like an increasingly distant dream. And on shows like Designated Survivor and Graves, about a current and former president, respectively, outlandish plots about ethnic bias and immigration pop out and appear more believable.”
Moving On From Lady Mary
Michelle Dockery says she loves playing complex, not always likeable characters – “like with ‘The Sopranos’ or ‘Nurse Jackie’ — or even Lady Mary, particularly in the last [season] — they’re characters that you go through phases with. You’re rooting for them but you don’t always approve of their behavior.”
LitHub Doubles Down On Its Commitments To Equity And Diversity Because ‘The Literary Is Political’
LitHub’s editor writes, “Literary Hub will use its platform (as we have tried to thus far) as a space for bearing witness and calling to action, for testimony and prosecution, for lamentation and, when possible, celebration. A space for the many and wonderful literary voices that make up our real America.”
What Kind Of Music Do Birds Like To Listen To?
There’s a science experiment, using a vaguely Pandora-like device, to find out. “Demaray is attempting to build a database of the songs preferred by our wild, feathered friends and eventually present a music-discovery service for birds.”
When Movies Are ‘Too Big To Fail’ – And Then They Do
When movies push the boundaries of the craft – you know, like when color and sound came around – they can fail hard, and then change everything. “But for every Mustang there’s an Edsel, and after two very costly, public humiliations, I think we can safely say that high frame rate is not the future of cinema.”
Podcasts Evolve To A Higher Level And Sophistication
“We’re starting to get away from the idea of the old-school radio drama with a capital R and a capital D,” said Julie Shapiro, the executive producer of the podcast network Radiotopia. In its place, she said, “a more contemporary sense is developing of what audio fiction can be.”
The World’s Greatest Jazz City? You Might Be Surprised…
“Newark’s place in jazz history includes Sarah Vaughan, Wayne Shorter, James Moody, Woody Shaw and Larry Young, among others. That coupled with its modern-day vibrancy makes Newark one of the greatest jazz cities in the world.”
Study: Why We’re Becoming More Ideologically Segregated
“Increasingly, our cultural divide is also a geographical divide, as mobile Americans choose to live among people with similar ideological beliefs. But why? A research study published this summer provides a clear answer: It’s far more emotionally comfortable.”
How Reality TV Has Changed The Nature Of Our Delusions…
Delusions have been around since people have been around, “but that delusions often bear a complicated relationship to the cultural context in which they occur. During the Cold War, for instance, there was an uptick in people believing they were under surveillance by the C.I.A. or F.B.I.” The rise of the “Truman Show” delusion has coincided with the advent of reality television and other media in which people actually are recorded and broadcast all the time. “We’re raising our children with the notion that you, too, can be famous tomorrow.”
Japanese Noh Plays Seem To Be Everywhere Right Now. But They’re Obscure, So Why?
“Why Noh? Why now? No (Noh) why. Noh is indirect drama, better suited for posing questions than, like Ibsen or Arthur Miller, positing answers. If we did know why, we wouldn’t need Noh, and clearly, we do.”