Tag: 03.24.19

A Highfalutin’ Art Critic Reconsiders Cartoonist Saul Steinberg

John Yau: “Being dispossessed must have haunted him his whole life, as did the endless bureaucracy involved with getting the documents you need to travel from one country to another, to settle into a new place. … What saved Steinberg and gave him a place in the world is drawing. All he needed was a pencil and paper. It enabled him to be mobile, to set up wherever he had a flat surface.” – Hyperallergic

Victor Hochhauser, 95, Impresario Who Brought Great Performers From Behind The Iron Curtain To London

He was the first in Britain to stage operas for mass audiences in arenas, and his Sunday concerts at the Royal Albert Hall (though they irked critics) drew many newcomers to classical music. But he and his wife, Lilian, were best known for presenting the best musicians and artists from the Soviet Union — Oistrakh, Rostropovich, Richter, the Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets, and many more. – The Guardian

The Strategies That Helped Lupita Nyong’o Make Her Voice Super Creepy For ‘Us’

Nyong’o heard a speaker (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) with a neurological order that makes the larynx spasm involuntarily – and then, of course, she worked with a vocal coach to inject the emotions that inspire the character. Her director, Jordan Peele, didn’t know what she was doing until preproduction. “‘She sat me down and said ‘Are you ready?’’ the director recalled. He wasn’t.” – The New York Times

A Scandal Engulfing The Shiny World Of Korean Pop Music May Transform The Country

Yes, it’s about sex tapes. But in a music world of K-Pop dominance, it’s time for a reckoning: “The Burning Sun scandal, as it’s been called, comes in the midst of a national conversation about misogyny and power — as well as spy-camera porn epidemic — and the momentum behind it has the potential to dramatically transform Korean society, or at least put several powerful men in serious legal trouble.” – Vulture

Austerity Almost Killed This Spanish Cultural Institution, But It Just Got Saved

The Spanish Royal Academy (RAE), the institution in charge of defending and defining the Spanish language, had been reeling under cuts for more than a decade. Then it got a new director – and he never stopped saying the RAE was of concern to the country. That worked, to the tune of 5 million Euros. Now, “the RAE will be in charge of at least 20 projects of exceptional interest, including the elaboration of different dictionaries, grammar or, now, its work of ensuring the correct use of language in the digital era.” – El País