“According to the ancient biographer Plutarch, men were hypnotized not by Cleopatra’s looks but by her wit and charm: Her beauty was ‘not of the incomparable kind that would astonish everyone who saw her,’ he wrote, ‘but her conversation was irresistibly fascinating, and her character utterly mesmerizing’. … Cleopatra’s profile on many surviving coins, which were minted in Egypt during her lifetime, is downright ugly.”
Tag: 03.08.10
Roman Functionaries Stop Concert Because It Was Closing Time
An official at the Pantheon interrupted a recent performance by the Russian ensemble Bach-Consort by walking into the performing area and announcing that the concert was over because closing time was 6pm sharp. (video here) The subsequent controversy led Italy’s culture minister to issue an official apology.
Kitchen-Sink Drama Staged In Actual Kitchens (The Samosas Are Delish)
“The eldest sister has been left slaving over a hot stove, while her younger sister flirts shamelessly and taunts her for being overweight. An argument breaks out: boiling oil is spilled. … This is not really a fractious family get-together (though it certainly feels like one) but a new play … being staged in various West Midlands kitchens for the next couple of weeks.”
Is There Room Onstage For Moral Ambiguity About War?
“I’ve sat through ‘anti-war’ theatre from the satire on Lyndon Johnson, McBird, through Rolf Hochhuth’s conspiracist anti-Churchill play Soldiers, to David Hare’s relatively subtle Stuff Happens. I’ve seen dozens of ’em. The thought is — or was — could there be a pro-war play?”
Reconsidering Classical Music’s No Applause Rule
Alex Ross: “Programme booklets sometimes contain a list of rules, rendered in the style of God on Mount Sinai,” telling people when it is and isn’t acceptable to applaud. “The underlying message of the protocol is, in essence: ‘Curb your enthusiasm. Don’t get too excited.’ Should we be surprised that people aren’t as excited about classical music as they used to be?”
Beyond Hogwarts: Adults Buying YA Books For Themselves
“[I]ncreasingly, adults are reading YA books with no ulterior motives. Attracted by well-written, fast-paced and engaging stories that span the gamut of genres and subjects, such readers have mainstreamed a niche long derided as just for kids.” The trend means that young-adult lit “is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak publishing market.”
Variety Film Critic Todd McCarthy On Being Cut Loose
“I’ve been fiercely and proudly reviewing at full speed since all the [previous] cutbacks. I made sure we had no slippage in our festival coverage and film reviewing, I’ve worked hard in recent times to make sure nothing slipped. The reviews have been the most unchanged part of Variety, period. Forever.”
North Shore Music Theatre To Return With Chestnuts
The new owner of the theatre, “which closed last year after accumulating $10 million in debt,” said that “this first season back is meant to offer stability to a theater that, at one point, was the largest nonprofit theater in the region, with close to 350,000 people attending annually.” The shows will go on with a far smaller house staff.
Bruce Graham, Architect Of Sears Tower, Dies At 84
“At the peak of his influence, from the 1960s through the 1980s, Graham was the top man at Chicago’s biggest architectural firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill…. [H]e shaped a legacy that suggests the epitaph on the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, who is buried in his masterpiece, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London: ‘Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.’ “
Coming Soon To An E-Reader Near You: NYT Book Review
The New York Times plans to “introduce a separate version of its Book Review for three e-reader platforms, beginning with the Sony e-reader in the next couple of weeks. Versions for Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook will follow.”