“This year, Lincoln Kirstein, a man who spent most of his life behind the scenes, will finally get his time in the spotlight. Few individuals have had a greater influence on the arts in New York City — and therefore in the country as a whole — than Kirstein (1907-1996). Yet Kirstein, whose centennial is being celebrated this year, is hardly a household name.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
R-Rated Movies Aren’t For Little Kids After All
“Dan Glickman says the changes in the movie ratings system he announced [at the Sundance Film Festival] Monday were not inspired by the Sundance documentary ‘This Film Is Not Yet Rated,’ which trashed the ratings body that grades films G, PG, R, etc., as a super-secret, censorious cabal that suffocates filmmakers — and gives violent movies a pass while being too strict about sex.”
Radio Stations Collaborate To Keep Classical Music
Washington, D.C., commercial radio station WGMS dropped its classical-music programming Monday, but that night a noncommercial station went classical, aided by the owner of WGMS. The company “said it struck the unusual agreement with noncommercial WETA to prevent classical music from disappearing from local airwaves. Such an alliance between for-profit and a nonprofit radio stations is almost unheard of.”
Fans Hold The Power, And Hollywood Wants It Back
“Whether it’s [Jennifer] Hudson, lonelygirl15 or Jade Goody, the foul-mouthed ex-nurse who … is just as celebrated in England as Posh Spice, celebrity has been rudely down-marketed and democratized. As Aaron Sorkin so eloquently put it the other day, complaining about the blogger influence on media coverage of his ‘Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip’ TV drama: ‘We live in the age of amateurs.’ “
Thinking Magically: Didion Is Hardly The Only One
“New research demonstrates that habits of so-called magical thinking — the belief, for instance, that wishing harm on a loathed colleague or relative might make him sick — are far more common than people acknowledge. … (M)agical thinking underlies a vast, often unseen universe of small rituals that accompany people through every waking hour of a day.”
Soap Opera Scriptwriters, Take Note
“In the movies amnesia is bizarre, and thrilling. The star is usually a former assassin or government agent whose future depends on retrieving the bloody, jigsaw fragments that restore identity and explain the past. Yet in the real world, people with amnesia live in a mental universe at least as strange as fiction: new research suggests that they are marooned in the present, as helpless at imagining future experiences as they are at retrieving old ones.”
Major Labels May Remove Digital Copying Restrictions
“As even digital music revenue growth falters because of rampant file-sharing by consumers, the major record labels are moving closer to releasing music on the Internet with no copying restrictions — a step they once vowed never to take. Executives of several technology companies … said over the weekend that at least one of the four major record companies could move toward the sale of unrestricted digital files in the MP3 format within months.”
Public Theater, Stanford Form A Partnership
“Stanford University and the Public Theater in New York have announced a long-term partnership that includes an annual residency program at Stanford for playwrights developing work for the Public, joint commissions for one playwright a year, and three annual fellowships for Stanford undergraduates and graduates with the artistic staff of the Public.”
If You Blog It, They Will Come
For two years, M dot Strange posted a YouTube video blog, detailing the progress of the movie he was making. When the film premiered at Sundance, “quite a few members of the audience left midmovie.” But this was hardly a measure of his fan base. “Kevin Donahue, vice president of content at YouTube, said M dot Strange has created an audience in part by talking to it.”
Ballet Teacher Antonina Tumkovsky, 101
“Antonina Tumkovsky, an influential teacher at the School of American Ballet who trained future stars of the New York City Ballet and other dancers for 54 years, died on Friday at the Tolstoy Foundation Nursing Home in Valley Cottage, N.Y., where she lived.”