“Cervantes and Shakespeare almost certainly never met, but the closer you look at the pages they left behind the more echoes you hear. The first, and to my mind the most valuable shared idea is the belief that a work of literature doesn’t have to be simply comic, or tragic, or romantic, or political/historical: that, if properly conceived, it can be many things at the same time.”
Tag: 04.10.16
‘Hamilton’, Obama, And America
“The show dramatizes that our founding documents weren’t handed down on stone tablets, and the founders weren’t saintly philosophers. They could be vain, petty, self-destructive; they fought each other as viciously as they fought the British.”
Social Outcast? What Happens When You’re In To Classical Music
“The trouble with being interested in classical music is that people look at you funny. You might be sitting with friends talking about pop music, or what you’ve read or seen on television, and everyone’s on the same page. And then you say “Yeah, it reminds me of that Shostakovich quartet, that chord at the end” and there’s a chill in the room, and the mood is killed.”
Iran Releases Toronto Filmmaker From Prison
“Mostafa Azizi, 54, was released from an Iranian prison on Saturday after serving about one year of an eight-year sentence for charges of insulting the country’s leader and spreading propaganda against the state.”
Longtime New Yorker Cartoonist Killed In Car Crash
“He had a particular beat, as it were – the preppy world, the world of Ralph Lauren, the Protestant WASP establishment that was on their way out, holding on to their diminishing privileges.”
Cate Blanchett Got Her Start Singing Silly Songs In The Melbourne University Law Revue
“You may not care much for the song (‘I wish I was your cigarette, smoked on through your lips/killing you softly with my tar and seeping out your nostrils’), but what’s undeniable is the vocal prowess of Ms. Blanchett.”
How Ensemble Theatres Can Make, Not Fake, Diversity
“In an ensemble theatre company, often it’s actors and other artists who hold the keys to what type of work is produced and which artists the company chooses to work with in the future. Oftentimes, these companies are made up of wonderfully talented white artists. They hit a brick wall, however, when they aren’t willing to give up opportunities in order to grow diversity in their artistic family.”
The Children’s Author Who Rebelled By Stealing His Parents’ Classical Records
“I thought if I seduced more people into the world of classical music I wouldn’t be as lonely and wretched.”
London’s Mayor Readies To Leave Office, And A Dismal Legacy
“These powers can be used to set standards, to lead by example, to show what a stupendously beautiful place, as Johnson might put it, the new ‘densified’ London could be. Instead he has approved all of the projects he has chosen to determine, often overruling boroughs’ opposition.”
Can NPR Survive The Fight For Its Future?
“The NPR News voice, though not monolithic, is unmistakably distinct from the diverse range of audio programming that has taken off in the recent podcast boom.”