“Criticism today is not about delivering truths from on high, but about striking a spark that lights a debate. The way I think about my work, and about art, is infinitely more plural and ambiguous than it was in 2006.”
Tag: 03.21.12
Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, And Spiritualism
“The dozen or so letters and scraps of free-written scrawl were from Conan Doyle and Houdini’s brief but spectacular relationship, one that was founded on and destroyed by a shared interest in the possibility of contacting people in the afterlife. … Their missives are debates over the nature of Spiritualism, examining the ways that psychics could be snookering their audiences.”
Stand-Up Comics Turn To Web-Only Material
“A handful of top-tier performers” – among them Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari and Jim Gaffigan – “have begun producing stand-up specials on their own, posting them online and selling them directly through their personal Web sites … While this straight-to-the-Internet strategy is far from ubiquitous in stand-up, it is already having a profound impact on the comedy landscape.”
Making Up Edith Wharton (As She Did)
“When Edith Wharton – then Edith Jones – was a little girl, her favorite game was called ‘making up.’ ‘Making up’ involved pacing around with an open book and (before she could read) inventing and then later half reading, half inventing stories about real people, narratives that she would chant very loud and very fast.”
Why It’s Worth It For Some Shows To Lose Money On Broadway
One reason is “the business considerations of modern Broadway: a desire among theater owners to keep their houses booked (even if seats are heavily discounted), and the belief among producers that they can negotiate better deals for road tours of musicals that can still claim to be so-called Broadway hits.”
Tackling The Holocaust On A Ballet Stage
Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project “is constructed in five parts, each of which explores the devastating outcomes of intolerance and discrimination, as revealed through the story of a Holocaust survivor.”
Building The Philippines’ First Science Museum
“During the construction of the Philippines’ first real science museum, curator Maria Isabel García insisted that workers decorate their crane to look like a Tyrannosaurus rex. The country’s largest newspaper ran a front-page picture. The caption: “Dinosaurs at Work!'”
North Korean Orchestra May Tour U.S.
“A humanitarian group is working to bring the National Symphony Orchestra of North Korea on a tour of the United States – with the full blessing of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, one of the most repressive countries in the world.”
Human Rights In Facebookistan
“Sovereignty and power are shifting. Before the internet, these notions were controlled by nation states. But companies like Facebook are the sovereigns of cyberspace. Facebook exercises power by shaping the way you interact with the world … [but it is] setting rules that are ultimately based on commercial considerations, not on the rights and civil liberties of users.”
Publisher: Gender Bias In Book Publishing Is Complicated
“I would like to publish more women, but the fact is that I will be publishing more books by men than by women. Of the books I have been offered, these are just the better books. So that’s a shocker. And no, I am not going to turn down a great book by a man just because he’s a man. Nor am I going to publish a book by a woman just because she’s a woman. It is – it has to be – the work that counts.”