Eastern Promises: Edinburgh Festival 2011 Looks At Asia (And Asia Looks Back)

This year’s EIF “will feature the National Ballet of China performing the classic Chinese love story The Peony Pavilion, combining western ballet forms and Chinese traditional music. Shakespeare will also loom large, with Seoul’s Mokhwa Repertory Company weaving The Tempest into fifth-century Korean chronicles” and a Peking Opera Hamlet. And Tim Supple will stage a new version of The Thousand and One Nights with an all-Arab cast.

Elizabeth Taylor, 79

“[Her] life offered a mesmerizing series of sagas to rival any movie plot, and they were chronicled by the media since her boost to fame as the enchanting 12-year-old star of National Velvet (1944). By her mid-20s, she had been a screen goddess, teenage bride, mother, divorcee and widow.”

The Politics Of Art Authentication

“As is the case with most catalogues raisonnés, the authors decline to give reasons to their decisions. It’s standard.” Foundations might fear litigation, or risk tipping off forgers on what their evaluators are looking for, if they were more forthcoming in their deliberations. Yet such silence also gives artist foundations complete authority with little accountability.

Dance Star Benjamin Millepied After “Black Swan”

“Often compared to Baryshnikov — another dancer rakish enough in a pair of white tights to gain cineplex appeal — Millepied the dance maker has been punished of late by the New York press. Initially the critics embraced the elegance and velocity of his work, yet recently there’s rankling about his ratio of charm to substance and questions of whether he’s delivering on his promise.”

Will The NYT Paywall Catapult Amazon Into The Lead?

“The rapidity in which Amazon buys content websites and blogs in order to bring in talent and an established reader base will surprise industry watchers. The shift from paying for advertising to investing in quality editorial content will seem like a predestined change in hindsight, but during the time of this shift it will feel like a novel and risky tactic.”