Yes, it’s true: Since the 1700s, creches in Catalonia have included, amidst the Virgin Mother, the Holy Child in the manger, and the shepherds, the caganer, a figure discreetly answering nature’s call. It’s a good luck charm, and over the years the traditional peasant farmer caganer has been joined by figurines of everyone from Napoleon to Beethoven to Vladimir Putin to Captain America.
Music (Or Any Art) Without An Audience Is… A Failure
“As much as we, in the solitary spaces of our practice rooms, can throw ourselves into a piece, we must remember that if the performance hall is as empty as that practice space then we have clearly not achieved connection with our audience. That is our responsibility.”
Police Investigate Corporate Philanthropy Chief’s Grant To His Partner’s Ballet Company
“The chair of supermarket chain Asda’s charitable foundation … resigned from his twin roles as vice president of corporate affairs and head of the £8.6 million foundation in September following the discovery that he had sanctioned [£180,000 in] payments … to the MurleyDance company, without the approval of the foundation’s board.”
25 Women Who Drove The Culture In 2014
“Whether they sent us into a collective tizzy with their scandalous album covers or had us pumping our fists in favor of their truthful testimony, these 25 women (plus a few honorable mentions at the end) were the ones who got us talking, thinking, re-thinking, and maybe, just maybe, planning a revolution of our own.”
Is “Gone With the Wind” America’s Strangest Film?
“Far from being simple, wholesome family entertainment, the film is an admiring portrait of a conniving, lying, mercenary seductress. It’s a valentine to the slave-owning South, and a poison-pen letter to the anti-slavery North. … It’s a romance that puts the hero and heroine at each other’s throats. And it’s an episodic coming-of-age story that keeps going for nearly four hours before reaching its abrupt, unresolved ending. In short, Gone with the Wind is a preposterous, almost unclassifiable mix of highly questionable elements. The wonder is not just that it’s America’s most beloved film, but that it isn’t America’s most hated.”
Remember That Old Lady’s Botched Fresco Restoration in Spain? Best Thing That Ever Happened To That Town
“Grief [at the damaged painting] has turned to gratitude for divine intervention – the blessing of free publicity – that has made Borja, a town of just 5,000, a magnet for thousands of curious tourists eager to see her[the hapless restorer’s] handiwork, resurrecting the local economy.”
If You Don’t Buy This Art Today, We’ll Burn It
“We’ll get a nice old-timey metal trash can . . . (the art) will be up until midnight, then we’ll take down all the works that are going to be destroyed.”
How Architecture Became Disconnected From The People Who Use It
“The question is, at what point does architecture’s potential to improve human life become lost because of its inability to connect with actual humans?”
Romancing The Audience (More Than Putting On A Good Show)
“In my experience as a reviewer, one of the biggest mistakes that performers and presenters can make is not respecting their audience. They make it a show all about themselves instead of seeing themselves as a vehicle of interpretation.”
Report: Big Drop In Spending On UK TV Programming (And A Corresponding Drop In Viewers)
“There was a 34% decrease in spend on first-run UK-originated drama programming, from £487 million in 2008 to £323 million in 2013. UK-originated shows are those commissioned by or for a public service broadcaster, with a view to their first showing being on UK TV.”
“Morally Treasonous And Spectacularly Dishonorable”: Sony Hackers Are Bad, But Media Who Report Info From Hack Are Worse
Aaron Sorkin: “I understand that news outlets routinely use stolen information. That’s how we got the Pentagon Papers, to use an oft-used argument. But there is nothing in these documents remotely rising to the level of public interest of the information found in the Pentagon Papers. … Every news outlet that did the bidding of the Guardians of Peace is morally treasonous and spectacularly dishonorable.”
Could Sony Sue Media Outlets For Reporting Hacked Info?
Over the weekend, star attorney David Boies wrote numerous news outlets on Sony’s behalf to warn that any leaked Sony documents should be destroyed, not published. Could the entertainment giant win a lawsuit over this? Probably not, argues law professor Eugene Volokh – if the media respect certain boundaries.
Richard Linklater On The Hardest Scene To Write In His 12-Year Epic “Boyhood”
“If there was one scene that felt like it was looming over all those years, it was the good-bye scene. I knew that the last shot of the movie would be Mason at college meeting someone – I had that in my mind for ten years, and I was looking forward to that – but I knew that the scene before it had to be the emotional break of the movie, when son parted from mom. It’s where Boyhood kind of ends emotionally, although spiritually, it continues.”
Atlanta’s Woodruff Arts Center Receives Largest-Ever Gift, $38 Million
The grant from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation includes $25 million for the endowment (pledged as matching funds) and $13 million for capital improvements, in particular at the Alliance Theatre. (The Woodruff also includes the Atlanta Symphony, which locked out its musicians for the first nine weeks of this season, and the High Museum of Art .)
Irene Dalis, 89, Star Mezzo-Soprano And Opera Company Founder
After a two-decade-plus career as one of her generation’s leading dramatic mezzos, Dalis returned to her hometown of San Jose, where she founded Opera San José in 1984 and led it to become a widely-admired regional company with its own theater.
Curtis Institute Of Music Gets $11.5M Gift From Board Chair
“Baroness Nina von Maltzahn is making a $10 million gift to the endowment to establish the Nina von Maltzahn President’s Chair, a post currently held by Roberto Díaz, plus $1.5 million to underwrite the Curtis on Tour program during the next three years.”
Pow! Right In The Canvas! This Video Game Lets You Punch A Monet
“Last week, IRL Monet-puncher Andrew Shannon was sentenced to six years in prison for his actions in 2012 (don’t worry, it has since been restored). As you take your anger out on the Impressionist masterpiece in the digital version, you can see the dollars’ worth of damage add up at the top of the screen – without the repercussions.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 12.15.14
Indianapolis Museum Stirs Up A Hornet’s Nest
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2014-12-15
“Forever Now,” Forever Yesterday: MoMA’s Failed Defense of 21st-Century Painting
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2014-12-15
Fire and Ice: Both Burn
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2014-12-15
Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows”
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2014-12-15
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Agnès Varda Is Fed Up With The Sexism Of European Cinema
“I know a lot of very good female directors and women editors and I would like them be more represented and helped by the European film academy.”