“We asked Mary Norris, The New Yorker‘s ‘comma queen,’ and … Benjamin Dreyer, copy chief of Random House, … about their love of editing, the mistakes people make, and whether or not this intro has too many commas. (It probably does, doesn’t it?)” – Literary Hub
Tag: 05.01.19
A Scientific Attempt To Study And Explain How Style Works
We believe that the social sciences would benefit from taking a more systematic look at the structure of culture, that is to say how the elements of culture are interrelated, and what really sets some apart when it comes to human attention and selection. In as much as this is relevant in fashion or music, it might be even more useful in the study of ideologies and political movements, topics that have taken a much more serious tone in recent years. – Aeon
Phil Solomon, Experimental Maker Of ‘Visionary Cinema’, Dead At 65
“His films, usually relatively short, did not have stars or plots in any conventional sense; he was after something more cerebral.” Said one colleague, “Phil considered the film frame as a painting — a rectangle full of tensions, textures and pulls — rather than as a window through which to daydream.” – The New York Times
Too Damn Cheerful! Our Obsession With It Is Nuts
The Ancient Greeks named four virtues: temperance, wisdom, courage and justice. Aristotle added more, but cheerfulness wasn’t one of them. The Greek philosophers didn’t seem to care about how we felt compared with how we acted. – Aeon
Now Up: “Bootleg” Copies Of Famous Art
And they’re going to be auctioned at Christie’s. “They’ll fool you from a distance. They won’t fool you close up.” – The New York Times
Pam Tanowitz, Perhaps ‘The Busiest Woman In Dance’
Just this year so far, she’s made high-profile work for the Martha Graham and Paul Taylor companies, New York City Ballet, and Ballet Across America at the Kennedy Center — and her own company is about to make a major appearance in London. “I’m nervous, and I’m worried, and I stay up at night,” she tells Gia Kourlas, I have so many steps in my head. … Sometimes I think, am I making the same dance over and over again?” – The New York Times
Meet The Choreographer Of One Of The Tony Nominees For Best New Play (Yes, Play)
Ink, a London transfer, starring Bertie Carvel and Jonny Lee Miller and directed by Rupert Goold, about Rupert Murdoch’s transformation of Britain’s The Sun into the notorious tabloid it is today, features several dance numbers choreographed by Lynne Page. Sylviane Gold talks to Page about the movement she devised for the show and how it’s different from what she’d do with a musical. – Dance Magazine
Will Theatre Ever Again Be At The Center Of Our Culture? Wrong Question
“[Stage plays] once entertained the tired businessman, and also somehow managed to stir hearts and minds with piercing social critique. Eugene O’Neill made the cover of Time four times in his career! How will we ever get back to that halcyon age, which was — well, when was it, exactly?” People have been asking that question at least since the advent of moving pictures, and it may not even be an apt question about, as Rob Weinert-Kendt puts it, “an art form expressly built to die and be reborn.” – American Theatre
How Do You Move A 20-By-11-Foot, $30 Million Painting Across The Atlantic?
Very carefully, of course. As for how, specifically, you go about it, reporter Ted Loos looked in on the handlers and shippers of William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s La Jeunesse de Bacchus (1884) as it made its way from Paris to New York. – The New York Times
Student Activists Demand Camille Paglia’s Dismissal
The ever-controversial writer and social critic has been teaching at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts for 30 years and is one of the few faculty members there with tenure. Now, a petition begun by a group of students declares that “Camille Paglia should be removed from UArts faculty and replaced by a queer person of color” because of opinions she has expressed on transgender issues and campus sexual assault. (Paglia identifies as transgender.) Others, including writer Conor Friedersdorf, argue that the activists’ demands pose a danger to freedom of expression. – The Atlantic