Tag: 05.13.15

How Marvel Is Killing The Popcorn Movie

“The human mission has been lost: these are faceless Stormtrooper movies, unleashed in waves upon the presumed-to-be-faceless Stormtrooper audience. Stories are an affirmation of our human value; they teach us what life means, make and keep us human. Marvel, by removing the human from its storytelling, may be bringing about the end of story altogether.”

Yoko Ono And The Myth That Deserves To Die

“Why is it such a perennial youthful rite of passage to misunderstand, to underestimate, even to hate Yoko Ono? What is this strange power she continues to wield? … Beginning to love Yoko Ono is a dangerous experience, because then you wonder: If Yoko Ono was something more than the woman who broke up the Beatles, then what other lies have I been told?”

How Oakland Ballet Rescued (And Made) Dance History

“For decades, [company founder Ronn] Guidi had been fascinated by the repertoire of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. … He engaged the original choreographers, or their appointed emissaries, and he reproduced the decor and costuming of the original productions, some of which were originally signed by museum names – Picasso, Derain, Chanel, Bakst, Benois and Goncharova. Dances we despaired of ever seeing live arose from the pages of the history books on the Paramount stage.”

A Philosophy Of Philosophy That Has Left Women Philosophers Out Of The Canon

“Overlooking these women’s contributions doesn’t just misrepresent the era, it’s also helped solidify philosophy’s status as a white men’s club. About 35 percent of U.S. philosophy faculty members in 2009, the most recent year for which reliable data is available, were women, and just 30 percent of the doctorates awarded that year went to women, according to data from Humanities Indicators, a project of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. The numbers are similar across the globe, including in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada.”

Why The Berlin Philharmonic Is Having Difficulty Picking A New Music Director

“The fact that they’re dampening down expectations of a quick re-election suggests this is more than a tussle of wills over a few preferred candidates. It points to a profound disagreement over fundamentals. The classical music world is changing, and that makes the business of finding a new leader for the BPO challenging, in a new and troubling way.”

Astronomical Rise In Prices For High End Art Illustrates Rising Global Financial Inequality

“The astronomical rise in prices for the most-sought-after works of art over the last generation is in large part the story of rising global inequality. At its core, this is the simplest of economic math. The supply of Picasso paintings or Giacometti sculptures (one of which sold for $141 million in the same auction this week) is fixed. But the number of people with the will and the resources to buy top-end art is rising, thanks to the distribution of extreme wealth.”