“After the longest out-of-town tryout in history, a new TKTS booth opened on Thursday in Duffy Square, eight years later and nine times costlier than originally estimated.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Historically-Informed Performance Meets the Weimar Republic
Max Raabe and the Palast-Orchester “have been re-creating not only the music but the very sound of the 1930s. That is: They don’t just sing old hits… [they] actually get the hard-edged, metallic sound familiar from recordings of the period.”
Switched at Birth?
Or, how a Tuscan merchant tried to pass himself off as heir to the throne of France, forged letters from the King of Hungary, and threw a (little) wrench into the Hundred Years’ War.
Bollywood Takes On the Credit Crisis
Characters in the new film EMI (for Equated Monthly Installments) “include a DJ who defaults on more than a dozen credit cards to impress his girlfriends, a man who takes a loan to send his son abroad to study and a socialite who charges her indulgences to her credit cards.”
The Best Books That Never Existed
The Guardian‘s Books Blog considers works that exist only in the pages of other works: Bacon Death and Your Clothes Are Dead (in Brautigan’s The Abortion: A Historical Romance), the novels of T.S. Garp, the many books mentioned in Borges’s Ficciones, and, of course, the titular travel guide in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Simulatio Urbis (Sim City, Roman-Style)
“A team of archaeologists, scientists and software programmers has created a 3D virtual model of the city of Cologne as it was 2,000 years ago. Though not yet online, the software allows visitors to fly through the city in its Roman glory.”
Seeking New Literary Talent in the Arab World
“Western publishers are launching a drive to tap the Arab world for new stars, hoping to bridge the language gap with more than 200 million native Arabic speakers – and make money from selling books.”
Do Stewart and Colbert Have a New Cohort?
In Living Color and Saturday Night Live alumnus David Alan Grier plays a not-ready-for-prime-time anchorman – plus other characters, including Maya Angelou – in Comedy Central’s parody show Chocolate News.
Fighting Sharia Censorship in Nigeria
“‘I don’t sell cocaine,’ says the video vendor in Kano’s Rimi market when I ask for Adam Zango’s music video CD Bahaushiya.”
Five Things I Hate About the Kirov
“Two years ago, the former Los Angeles Times dance critic Lewis Segal wrote an article called ‘Five Things I Hate About Ballet’… Tuesday night, watching the Kirov Ballet at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, I thought I knew just how he felt.”