Tag: 02.02.18

Zadie Smith Struggles With Fame And Middle Age

“The Amis that Smith herself resembles is Martin. What they share is the predicament of the former wunderkind. Both burst to fame in their early 20s as truly funny comic novelists. Both are dedicated students of literature, as good as critics as they are as novelists. Both are transatlantic liberals who grew up in public and have been compelled to wear the mantle of the public intellectual. But public seriousness has never been a comfortable fit for either of them.”

UK Publishers Pressure Man Booker Prize To Re-Exclude American Authors

A letter from 30 publishers “argues that the rule change to allow any writer writing in English and published in the UK to enter has restricted the diversity of the prize and led to the domination of American authors since it came into effect in 2014. Previously, the prize only allowed citizens from Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland to enter.”

Balanchine’s Guys Made A Difference

One of Balanchine’s most famous maxims, for better or worse, was “ballet is woman.” Yet at City Ballet, he produced a number of extraordinary male dancers, including Jacques d’Amboise and Arthur Mitchell, both 83, and Edward Villella, 81 — American treasures who overcame stereotypes about men and ballet and, on Mr. Mitchell’s part, racism, to devote themselves to the art form and to Balanchine.

Sound Engineers Can Bend Sound To Their Will. So Why Are Some Music-Lovers Resistant?

“What I find particularly interesting in this technological revolution is the continuing resistance from many musicians, conductors, architects, clients and funders who remain vehemently opposed to electronic acoustics — despite their obvious benefits. This camp claims that the technology and underlying power supplies are not dependable, that the complexity of the system is beyond them, and that the sounds are just not good. This resistance is not a small thing. Installation of these new technologies forces huge additional expenditures and investments in order to create the volumes of space, proper materials and reflecting angles required.”

Kentucky Governor Tries To Kill The State’s Arts Programs

Bevin has spent two years trying to undermine the Arts Council and its work. In addition to his 2016 board reorganization, he forced out veteran executive director Lori Meadows. Her successor, Lydia Bailey Brown, lasted nine months. Since Brown quit five months ago, there has been little apparent effort to find a new director. The annual Governor’s Awards in the Arts, which the Arts Council manages for the governor’s office, also has gotten weird.

Listen To The Painstaking Way Glenn Gould Recorded The Goldberg Variations (Studio Sessions Released)

“It’s still amazing to hear the seemingly impossible clarity of Gould’s playing, the sometimes manically fast tempos. And, for all his frenetic energy, in passage after passage, he brings out the music’s majesty, dancing grace and tenderness. Hearing the intense young Gould at work during these arduous recording sessions, playing through a variation at a breakneck tempo with prickly sound, then playing it again, and again, and again, is not just exhausting; it’s stupefying. What, I asked myself, was the point?”

Separating Bad-Acting Artists From Their Art

“A misconception abounds that feminists who want to bring abusers to account don’t accept Roland Barthes’s “death of the author” principle. This is not really true, at least for me. I consider Woody Allen and Roman Polanski’s movies gifts, to me and to the culture—even when they’re bad—and I’m never giving them back. I don’t want Allen and Polanski to have control over their own legacies or even over their own works. If they don’t get to dictate how I interpret their films, then they don’t get to control anything about the film industry. We, the viewers, do.”