“The title is explained inside: ‘[This book] is quick, easy, straightforward, and good for you. Just like beans on toast.’ It is a good job the book is so compelling, or the author would look like a blinking idiot.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Culture Isn’t on the Debate Agenda (But It Should Be)
“Shouldn’t taxpayers also acquire equity status [in exchange for the Wall St. bailout], so that rather than handing out corporate welfare we get some direct dividend if any of these private companies turn around? And couldn’t that dividend be used, in part, to underwrite full American public participation in the arts? … [And] what if the NEA just changed the rules? What if, say, its art museum exhibition grants were available only to shows that are open free to the public? That one small policy change would cause a profound shift in the way American museums do business.”
Oskar Eustis on Why He’s Producing Sondheim at the Public
“Who else is going to produce him? I’d like to say two things about that. This show [Road Show] has been around and has failed to come to New York. The producing community has let Sondheim down… Secondly, as we kept working on the show, the great themes of the piece started to feel more and more like Public Theater themes to me… Good God, the show is about a real estate bubble that bursts!”
Dennis Hopper Does a Fashion Shoot(!)
In which our protagonist shows off his Frank Gehry house and Warhol paintings, the photographer strips naked, and everyone survives an earthquake.
Christoph Eschenbach Named Music Director of National Symphony
“His designation, announced last night by Kennedy Center officials, comes with a twist: Eschenbach, 68, also will hold the newly created title of music director of the Kennedy Center. In this role, he will work closely with… the center’s programmers on the kinds of interdisciplinary, themed festivals and projects that have become something of a Kennedy Center hallmark.”
Radiohead Launches Easier, Less Expensive Remix Contest
“Radiohead’s remix contest for its track ‘Nude’ was a big deal by any measure… Building on that experience, the band has decided to unbundle ‘Reckoner,’ another of its In Rainbows tracks into individual remix stems, once again for sale via the iTunes music store, but with a few twists.”
The National Anthem at Baseball Games – It’s Harder Than You Think
“Everything from the sound delay from the stadium speakers to any F-18s flying overhead conspire to derail the performance.”
Judge Grants New Trial in Illegal Downloading Case
“A federal judge granted a new trial to a Minnesota woman convicted of pirating music files in the nation’s first file-sharing trial, ruling Wednesday he made an error in the jury instructions that ‘substantially prejudiced’ her rights.”
Humanitarian Intervention and Its Discontents
Michael Ignatieff: “Humanitarians may be as racist as realists. The same condescension that prompts realists to stay out of the quarrels of little peoples can prompt humanitarians to plunge in to save them. If humanitarians – then and now – often underestimate the costs of intervention, it may be because they condescend to the capabilities of the butchers they are out to defeat. If they overestimate the gratitude of the people on whose behalf they intervene, it may be because they are too much in love with the fantasy of helpless and thankful victims.”
A Good Place to Watch English Evolve
“For the third time in a week I am on urbandictionary.com, and haunted by the feeling that this is not quite what my time as poet-in-residence at the Wordsworth Trust should be spent doing.”