“How should an architect approach the task of designing a building to represent his home country abroad? What happens if the result — implicitly or explicitly — is critical of that country’s past, politics or most cherished values?”
Tag: 03.21.10
Michelle, Girls Catch B’way Show During Health Care Drama
“Michelle Obama – with Sasha, 8, and Malia, 11, and about a dozen other people in tow – took in the matinee performance of ‘Memphis’ Sunday. … The musical tells the story of a white DJ, Huey Calhoun, in 1950s segregated Tennesse; his love for a black singer, Felicia Powell, and the then underground sound that gave birth to rock and roll.”
Thousands Of Muhammad’s Descendants File Lawsuit Over Danish Cartoons
“Up to 95,000 descendants of the prophet Muhammad are planning to bring a libel action in Britain over ‘blasphemous’ cartoons of the founder of Islam, even though they were published in the Danish press.”
The Poor Cambodian, The Wealthy Texan And The Ballet Shoes
How Anne Bass, the arts patron and dance lover, happened on a gifted young traditional dancer at Angkor Wat, brought him to the U.S., supported his (difficult) transition to Western classical ballet, and chronicled the whole thing on video.
The Beep: ‘An Ingenious Creation’
Virginia Heffernan: “Like the railroad toot but unlike an old telephone ring, beeps have both a distinct start and finish … and an elastic center that can generously expand and contract like an accordion: beeeeeeeep. … Plants don’t beep, nor weather, nor animals. … If you hear a beep, you know that a person, or more likely his artifact, is signaling.”
How Ed Asner Came To Be Playing FDR Onstage
“I was on this same cruise ship and didn’t have anything to do on that particular trip, and the resident cruise ship genius said there was this script that Dore Schary wrote subsequent to Sunrise at Campobello on FDR’s last years. … I’ve never done a one-man show, and I wanted to see if I could meet the challenge, and of course, I adore Roosevelt.”
‘Recombinant Art’ – Where The Web And Mash-Up Culture Are Leading Us
The destination, suggests Michiko Kakutani, could be something like David Shields’s new book, Reality Hunger, which “consists [almost entirely] of 618 fragments, including hundreds of quotations taken from other writers like Philip Roth, Joan Didion and Saul Bellow – quotations that Mr. Shields, 53, has taken out of context.”
L.A.’s $32M ‘Ring’ Cycle – Where Does All That Money Go?
“The number ‘has been hung around our neck like a yoke,’ says Christopher Koelsch, L.A. Opera’s vice president of artistic planning. ‘We don’t get a review of the Ring that doesn’t talk about the cost.’ When The Times inquired about what goes into a $32-million production, Koelsch welcomed the chance to have the budget ‘demystified’.”
When Japan-Mania First Hit America
It was back before anime, or California Zen, or Whistler painting women in kimonos, or even The Mikado. In 1860, a group of samurai diplomats arrived in San Francisco on a state visit and made their way to New York and Washington, attracting cheering crowds. The excitement of the encounter on both sides promptly disappeared amidst each country’s civil war.
How Spaniards Used Romans To Understand Aztecs
The Getty Villa, California’s temple to ancient Greece and Rome, is currently hosting a show of objects and manuscripts from the earliest days of Nueva España. What’s the connection? “From the moment Europeans went to Mexico, … they encountered a culture that was so unfamiliar, the only frame of reference they had was their knowledge of Roman antiquity.”