Show tunes can do just about anything, or so this Inaugural Night fundraiser seemed to say. “Though the name of the man being installed as the new president was never once mentioned, the subtext of the benefit seemed to be a refusal to succumb to any pessimism brought on by his election.
Tag: 01.20.16
A First: Older Recordings Outsold New Releases In 2015
“Despite the massive success of Adele’s album 25, which sold a whopping 7.4 million copies in only six weeks, 2015 marked the first time in U.S. history that new releases were outsold by catalogue albums.”
The Invention Of Ambient Music
“In the sixties, pop music in West Germany was in a peculiar state. … But, as with the New German Cinema that emerged in that decade, new German sounds had begun to take shape. … The German press (and, for the most part, German audiences) ignored the ‘Krautrock’ bands entirely. But in advertisements and airports, on film soundtracks, and in concert halls, high and low, the music is still in the air, all around us.”
You Know A Lot Of Diane Warren Songs, Even If You’ve Never Heard Her Name Before
“If Warren’s career were one of her songs, she’d be in the bridge right now, the section that emphasizes the contrast between the verses and choruses, and which brings us back to the huge chorus at the end. ‘I’m so into the next,’ she said.”
New US Arts Education Law Suggests Hope
“While No Child Left Behind named the arts as a “core academic subject of learning,” gaps in access to arts learning persisted. In fact, despite the clear evidence of the value of learning in and through the arts, the U.S. Department of Education’s own research finds that the highest poverty schools in this country have the least access to arts education.”
A Neuroscientist Explains The Phrase ‘I Just Snapped’
“That neural circuitry is all subcortical; it’s not conscious. … The minute something is received as dangerous, or threatening, it invokes this defensive physical reaction. That’s the connection between snapping and threat detection, and that explains why we’re bewildered after we react in this way.”
How Art Star Mark Grotjahn Became Art Star Mark Grotjahn: By Repainting Signs For Local Mom-And-Pop Stores In L.A.
Jerry Saltz: “As a fan who’s never spoken to Grotjahn, I’ve often wondered where this Los Angeles-based artist’s work comes from, especially since he started making his abstract paintings when such paintings were entirely out of style.”
Two Of The Missing Hong Kong Booksellers Mysteriously Surface In China
“One man appeared on state-run Chinese TV saying he’d voluntarily returned to the mainland to face justice in a 2003 drunk-driving case. Meanwhile, the wife of another said she had received a handwritten letter, purportedly from her husband, reiterating that he too had returned to the mainland of his own volition to assist with ‘investigations.’ Both of the men hold European passports.”
Filmmaker Ettore Scola Dead At 84
“[He was] a painstaking and passionate chronicler of Italian society whose unforgettable masterpieces featured global stars like Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. … He leaves behind a wide-ranging oeuvre portraying the dark years of Italy under fascism and its identity crisis in the early half of the 21st century.”
Remembering The Great Hollywood Choreographer We’ve All Forgotten
But you remember his work if you’ve seen Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. And Jack Cole’s dances “are often the most compelling reason to revisit movies like Down to Earth, On the Riviera and The I Don’t Care Girl. … It’s hard not to be drawn in – and sometimes taken aback – by the vitality and sexual exuberance of Cole’s dance numbers.”