“A truly traumatic thing occurs to the family and then the family begins to unravel. The misery of this family’s daily life takes a slow toll. Real life is plotless, but the experience of reading books that replicate this can be irritating.” Akhil Sharma explains how he approached this “technical problem” of writing his autobiographical novel Family Life.
Tag: 04.07.14
Repetition In Music: We’re Hard-Wired To Respond To It
Music psychologist Elizabeth Margulis found that she could make ordinary listeners respond positively even to Berio by simply adding repeats to it. Why did that work? (includes audio)
When Artists Go All ‘Social Practice,’ How Do We Judge Their Art?
“These kinds of manufactured encounters aren’t unique to the art world. ‘The entire foundation of the Apple Store was that it would be a place of human relations,’ he says. ‘Sales people were trained to be empathetic, and the cash register was purposely kept hidden. There is a global interest in human relationships.'”
Poll: What Americans Think About Popular Music
“Forty-two percent of Americans think that this decade has the worst music compared with the other four most recent decades. Next in order are the 2000s (15 percent), 1990s (13 percent), 1980s (14 percent) and the 1970s (12 percent).”
Milwaukee Art Museum To Add Another Extension
Wait, didn’t they just add that Santiago Calatrava building with the wings? Actually, that was 13 years ago. Not only will this new addition add 8,000 square feet of exhibition space, the price tag is, as these things go, relatively modest.
Hey, That Painting In Our Basement Is A Rembrandt!
Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum has had the work for 72 years, but had concluded by 1987 that it was by a Rembrandt student – until a leading scholar authenticated it this year.
All Writers Pine For A Vera Nabokov
“Twenty-three years after her death, Vera Nabokov remains a revered figure in capital ‘L’ Literature … Vera not only performed all the duties expected of a wife of her era … but also acted as her husband’s round-the-clock editor, assistant, and secretary. … So it seems likely that having, or not having, a Vera could be the missing piece in creating gender parity within literature.”
The Great Living-Room War: Live TV vs. Internet TV
Derek Thompson: “TV, as we know it, is cable packages and live channels. But the new players are building an Internet-video experience around apps with very little access to live television. It’s not TV. It’s Internet TV. Even as these tech upstarts are battling each other for living-room dominance, they’re also battling the legacy of traditional television and the sturdy cable bundle.”
‘It Sounds Like A Stupid Fairytale’: Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Wishes Come True With Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo
When Princess Caroline invited Maillot to lead Monaco’s ballet company, he says, “I wanted to show the world that this company wasn’t the toy of a princess. I wanted a company that would have its own identity. And I wanted Monaco, so small and so specific, to experience the whole possibility of dance.”
In January Minnesota Dance Theatre’s Entire Board Resigned. Now There’s A New Board
Artistic director Loyce Houlton said that there were “disconnects” between the departed board and the organization. While she would not go into details about what precipitated January’s startling news, she “took responsibility,” as a board member and artistic director.