“‘I had to jump through hoops for him,’ Lily recalled. ‘I’m sure he was testing if this white girl was OK to work with.’ … ‘We had conversations that spiraled into the ozone,’ Richard recalled. ‘In minutes, we’d create enough characters to populate entire neighborhoods.'”
As ‘Dubliners’ Turns 100, Short Story Writers Are Still Trying To Live Up To Its Promise
“All writers will fail, routinely, to live up to Dubliners. But there are specks of light on the horizon.”
Legendary London Cabaret Shut Down After Bouncers’ Baseball Bat Attack
“Madame Jojo’s – home to some of London’s most diverse nightlife for more than half a century” – has had its license revoked by the local council of Westminster. Some activists say that it’s an attempt by the council to gentrify Soho; the council says it’s because of “an organised assault with injury” by the club’s staff.
Teetering Ulster Orchestra Gets A Lifeline (A Short One)
“Belfast City Council has agreed to give £100,000 to the Ulster Orchestra, to help it out of its financial problems. However, the offer is conditional on other funders also contributing to the orchestra’s £500,000 shortfall.”
An Artist Finds Out What It’s Like To Be A Nude Figure Model
Tanis Taylor: “I’ve been on the other side of the easel for more than 20 years. I know that where I’m standing is hallowed ground. Sacred. A life drawing discipline is non-judgemental; no body fascism here.” Nevertheless, she experiences a mix of British bashfulness and body shame – at first.
Why Are Pop Music Songs Three Minutes Long?
Modern pop charts show that artists still stick to the three- to four-minute mold, though radio restrictions are no longer as ironclad. For that, musicians can thank Bob Dylan.
Iconic “Casablanca” Movie Piano Sells For $3.4 Million
It is one of the most famous pianos in the world, the piano Ingrid Bergman was close to when she delivered one of Hollywood’s unforgettable lines: “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.’ ” It is the short little upright from Rick’s Café Américain in the movie “Casablanca.”
Cuba To Stage Its First Broadway Musical Since The Revolution
Rent – in Spanish, with a full staging – opens on Christmas Eve for a three-month run at the Centro Cultural Bertolt Brecht in Havana.
William H. Scheide, 100, Prolific Philanthropist
“[He] was 28 when his father died and he inherited the family fortune. Over the next seven decades, he also passed down his passions, but to far more beneficiaries. Before his death on Nov. 14 at 100, Mr. Scheide devoted his life to philanthropic and artistic pursuits striking in their range and depth.”
How Much Can People Really Change After Age 30?
“‘You’re doomed! What you’ve got now – that’s it,’ is the answer [psychology professor] Brian Little … gave me, and he was only half-joking.” And he was half-joking because that answer is about half-true.
The Nature Of Clickbait Today (And Why We Might As Well Quit Kvetching About It)
By now, most of us have learned to see through, and make fun of, Upworthy-style headlines. “Thus clickbait – or whatever you want to call it – has now, in the manner of a hemorrhagic fever, evolved. It’s finished with its low-hanging-fruit phase, and has attached itself to a new form of curiosity-gap exploitation, one that’s more insidious, but no less irritating.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 11.24.14
The soul of a city
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2014-11-24
Flight From Bentonville, Part II: Chris Crosman, Crystal Bridges’ Founding Curator, on Its Brain Drain
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2014-11-24
What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve (Day)?
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2014-11-24
Aimee Mann: Roots of a Songwriter
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2014-11-24
Spotify Lightning: Right Spark, Wrong Rod
AJBlog: blog riley Published 2014-11-24
#PublicArt posting on Facebook in November
AJBlog: Aesthetic Grounds Published 2014-11-24
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The Reason You Have To Smuggle In Reasonably Priced Candy Or Drinks To Movie Theatres
“Even with the exorbitantly high prices on food items, only about 4% of a theater’s gross revenue in a given year is profit, despite typically around an 85% profit margin on concession sales themselves,” thanks to a 1938 court case that limits studio monopoly power (really).
A Swiss Museum Will Accept The Secret Nazi-Era Art Trove Of Cornelius Gurlitt
The president of Kunstmuseum Bern’s board of trustees “said the museum would seek to set a new standard in handling Nazi-looted art, by having a privately funded team of experts comb the history of each piece before it came into the museum’s possession.”
Facebook Has A Huge Corporate Art Lab
“As much as PHP code and ‘The Hacker Way,’ art is a fundamental part of the Facebook culture. Art doesn’t just decorate Facebook’s offices, it defines them.”