No, he’s not back on TV, but he is talking to New York magazine’s David Marchese about retirement (“I’m lonely, I can’t stop talking. This is like visitors’ day at prison for me.”), late-night TV today (he never watches), and what he’d do if he got The Donald on camera.
Tag: 03.05.17
Who Stole This Rare Strad Violin While Its Owner Was In The Hospital?
“What is known is that on October 18, 1995, a friend dropped by to check on the apartment while 91-year-old Morini was in the hospital. The door to the apartment was locked and everything seemed to be in its place. So, the friend, Erica Bradford, along with her daughter Valerie, went to check on the violin as was her habit. She retrieved the key from a box where it was hidden in the bedroom, opened the china closet door, and found a different case sitting in the place the Strad’s had occupied for so many years. She opened the imposter and discovered that it was empty. The violin was gone.”
Our Changing Relationship With The Things Around Us
“When did our world become quite so full of stuff? But acquisition and waste are both logical byproducts of basic human capacities for shaping and making, for decoration and manipulation: part of being human. Our linked capacities for manufacture and trade have long shaped our world, it’s just that both have developed exponentially in recent history and we are still unsure of where that is leading us. The things we are drawn to acquire reflect and express our personalities and more: our ideas about ourselves, our aspirations and perhaps our limitations and delusions.”
Asia Week Has Come Around Again, With The Shadow Of Last Year’s Raids (Possibly) Behind It
The show, or festival, has become a sort of “high-culture pub crawl,” though “organizers are still mindful that a year ago, federal officials and the Manhattan district attorney’s office raided several dealers during a crackdown on antiquities smuggling.”
Why Does Dance Movement Have To Be Gender-Specific? (It Doesn’t)
“We can all do all the parts. We don’t do lifts. The traditional duet always has the woman reliant on the man, him leading and her going along with it. Even with Merce, partnering was traditionally gendered. Sexual but “pure”. I’m sick of it. I’m trying to be human, to make something that is ourselves. It’s about stripping away mannerisms and affect. So you just see the person, moving.”
Surprise? African-American Viewership Of Oscars Was Way Up This Year
“Nielsen data shows an average of 4.17 million black viewers were tuned into the 89th Academy Awards telecast, an increase of 30% over last year. The overall audience for the Oscars was 32.9 million, a 4% decline from the previous year and the lowest since 2008. The Oscars averaged an 18.68 rating in African American homes, which is the highest number among the segment since 2014. The rating among black homes was higher than the overall rating of 18.39.”
Danger – Is Our Writing Getting More Extreme And Political?
“I have been drawn, almost against my will, to notice the intensifying politicization of the literary world and, hand in hand with that, a predilection for melodrama, for prose that stimulates extreme emotions — in good causes of course. The cause justifies the melodrama. The melodrama serves the cause.”
Americans Have Given Up, Or So The Numbers Say
Forget innovation and nimble adjustment to circumstances. Forget the entrepreneurial spirit. Geographic immobility, including rising housing prices – and the prevalence of video games and TV shows – have us all trapped.
The Disney Channel Made A Lot Of Near-Futurist Movies 10-20 Years Ago, And Now We’re In The Near Future
How does the tech hold up? Surprisingly well, as if Disney Channel movies of the late 1990s were like the Black Mirror of today. “It is truly unfortunate that we don’t pay closer attention to silly near-future children’s entertainment when guessing at what anxieties we might soon develop. It’s too late, but we can look back at them now and marvel.”
Frank Gehry’s New Concert Hall Opens In Berlin
Mark Swed reviews the sound of the new hall, and Christopher Hawthorne takes on the architecture (read that story here). Swed calls it the “graceful, airy, idealistic Pierre Boulez Saal, which opened here Saturday night. Rather than stand tall, it stands for something.”