Tag: 02.17.18

Prisoner Gets Book Deal, And State Decides It Wants To Bill Him For Room And Board

“In the summer of 2016, Curtis Dawkins, a felon who is serving a life sentence in Michigan for murdering a man during a botched robbery, got some unexpected good news. Scribner, one of the top literary publishing houses in the United States, wanted to publish his debut collection of short stories, and offered him $150,000. … But his surprising literary debut also caught the attention of Michigan’s attorney general, who now wants Mr. Dawkins, 49, to use his financial windfall to pay for his incarceration.”

Opera Has To Evolve… Or It Dies

“The medium of expressing emotions in hundreds-of-years-old opera is different from the emotions now. People fall in love on Tinder. In the old days we had time to write letters and to wait for weeks; the speed of emotional reaction and interaction is different. I’m not saying we dump opera – far from it – but we’ve got to let opera evolve.”

The Secrets Science Is Revealing In Picasso’s Work

Picasso painted La Misereuse Accroupie in 1902, and it is currently on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario. The researchers used a non-invasive technique called x-ray fluorescent spectroscopy to analyze the painting. It turns out that the artist painted his work on top of another unknown artist’s painting of a landscape, and incorporated the landscape’s forms into the woman’s figure. You can sort of see the landscape by flipping the painting 90 degrees to the left.

The Temporary (And Constantly Changing) Balloon Art Of Jihan Zencirli

For her most recent large piece for the New York City Ballet, she “has set tens of thousands of balloons, measuring from ten inches to ten feet, throughout the David H. Koch Theater. They scale the building’s exterior and spill into the Lincoln Center plaza. You may even spot them around town, a colorful off-campus salute to NYCB. And because even professionally inflated balloons constantly change their shape and pop spontaneously, her creations will look different if you attend the ballet more than once this Winter Season.”

Let’s Talk About That General Character In Black Panther, And What She Means

You might know Danai Gurira as a major character on The Walking Dead or as the playwright of Eclipsed, which starred Lupita Nyong’o and ran on Broadway to much acclaim. In the Marvel movie, she plays the leader of a group of women warriors who protect the king. “When I sat down with [director Ryan] Coogler, what’s so very important to me as an African woman and as a playwright who writes from the African perspective — because of the lack thereof, or the misrepresentation thereof, or the distortion thereof — it was very important that an African narrative is treated with the respect and authenticity.”

Picasso Painted ‘The Crouching Beggar’ Over A Landscape, But Whose?

Conservators had noticed different-colored paint peeking through cracks, but only recently have non-invasive X-rays allowed them to see what lies beneath. “‘This is where technology allows us to get into the mind of the artist, so we can actually understand the creative process of Picasso and how he actually started producing this work of art,’ said Marc Walton of Northwestern University.”

Bernadette Peters Re-Conquers Broadway In A Classic Role

Generations of Broadway legends have played the role of Dolly, and Peters is (more than) up for it now: “When I took on the role, though, I just — I started from scratch. I read the script, I read The Matchmaker — the play that Mike Stewart wrote [Hello, Dolly!] from — and I found this person, this woman. I found the woman that I would play in it, the Dolly I would play.”