“[W]e cannot deny that few things are better at getting a conversation started than a provocative piece of art – especially if it involves the use (or abuse) of a religious symbol. The latest case in point: This week, a cathedral in the French town of Gap displayed a sculpture that depicts Jesus Christ sitting in an electric chair.”
Tag: 04.17.09
Nashville Opera Opens New HQ
“The Nashville Opera will unveil its new $6 million headquarters with an April 30 ribbon-cutting. The 26,000-square-foot Noah Liff Opera Center includes office, studio and warehouse spaces, as well as large community spaces for special events.”
How To Write A Pulitzer Prize-winning Play
If you follow my rules for surefire Pulitzer-bait, you too can catch the laurel.
Music Festivals Fret About A Downturn
“Festival organizers across the continent are voicing concerns that tough times could soften ticket sales in an era when corporate sponsorships — a critical source of revenue — are increasingly difficult to secure and competition to book performers with proven box-office drawing power has never been more fierce.”
Arrr, Matey. Pirate Bay Loses At Downloading Trial
“A Stockholm court found the four defendants guilty of making 33 specific files accessible for illegal sharing through The Pirate Bay, which means they will have to pay compensation to 17 different music and media companies including Sony BMG, Universal, EMI, Warner, MGM and 20th Century Fox.”
What Makes A City A Music Capital?
“No city on earth has more nightly performance than London and none can approach its depth and diversity. Yet, in the premier league of music capitals, London struggles for recognition beside Vienna, Paris and Milan. It is regarded as a bit of a parvenu, a place of skimpy traditions, capital of what Germans used to call the Land Without Music.”
About Face – Worked Up Over Fonts
“Typefaces convey meaning, typographers say. Helvetica is an industry standard, plain and reliable. Times New Roman is classic. Depending on your point of view, Comic Sans is fun, breezy, silly or vulgar and lazy. It can be “analogous to showing up for a black-tie event in a clown costume,” warns the Ban Comic Sans movement’s manifesto.”
ABT Receives $5M Gift
“American Ballet Theater announced on Thursday that it had received a gift of $5 million from Toni and Martin Sosnoff … the single largest it has received from a private donor.” The money will be put into a fund dedicated to supporting all new ballets that ABT commissions.
Stupid Advice On Writing (From A Classic, No Less)
“The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students’ grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it. The authors won’t be hurt by these critical remarks. They are long dead.”
How Office Configurations Reflect How We Think About Work
“Since the dawn of the white-collar age, office designs have cycled through competing demands: openness versus privacy, interaction versus autonomy. Here’s a brief history of how seating arrangements have reflected our changing attitudes toward work.”