“This overemphasis on drugs has become a knee-jerk reaction that’s thrown our whole concept of happiness out of whack. Happiness is now seen as a lack of suffering as opposed to accomplishing important societal goals, like creating art. Ordinary melancholy — a term that dates back to the ancient Greeks — is a natural part of life. It may not be pleasant, but it can be beneficial, because it causes an emotional state of unrest that acts as a spark plug to creative thought.”
Tag: 05.18.08
Tough Music For Tough Times
“When times get tough, as in America during the Great Depression and the Second World War, music gets soft. The times, surveys say, are once again tough, and they’re likely to stay that way. A sustained period of stylistic regression is thus a possibility. But there is no law that says history has to repeat itself in an endless loop.”
Grafitti, The History
“New York graffiti is the stuff of legend. At least, it was: a messenger boy calling himself TAKI 183 is credited with launching the craze in the early 1970s, and later, when the city was fighting crime and recession, the scene exploded in the city’s subway. Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat brought it into the galleries in the 1980s. Then a succession of New York mayors cracked down.”
Next Steps In Barnes Move Decision
“This week, opponents of the move were handed a big defeat when Judge Stanley R. Ott ruled that neither the Friends nor Montgomery County government had the legal standing to ask for a new hearing. County officials said yesterday that they were unlikely to appeal Ott’s refusal. The Friends group, which has spent six years fighting to keep the foundation’s Renoirs and Picassos hanging where Barnes left them, are considering one.”
A Poet Bad As…
“Like many poets, William Topaz McGonagall struggled for his art. Against all odds, and despite evidence to the contrary, the former weaver spent more than two decades in the late 19th century trying to prove he was a literary genius.”
Fire Destroys Thousands of Historic Books
“A fire that destroyed the architecture- faculty building at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands may lead to the loss of 40,000 books and illustrated works from as early as the 17th century.”
The Worst Director Ever?
“There is a Web site called StopUweBoll.org, with a petition demanding that he stop making movies. The petition had drawn only 18,000 names until last month, when Mr. Boll told the horror-movie Web site FearNet.com that he would quit making films if a million people signed. With his own version of “bring it on,” the list has now grown to more than a quarter of a million.”
An Opera Legend Now Largely Forgotten
“Already something of a misty legend at the time of his death in 1975, Walter Felsenstein is now largely forgotten by the public. It’s possible that American opera fans who regard the Met as the center of the universe may never have heard of him at all.”
The Secret Rivalry Behind Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel
“The artist was awarded the commission unaware that he was the target of a conspiracy hatched by Donato Bramante, the architect of St Peter’s Basilica, and the painter Raphael, who persuaded Pope Julius II to oblige Michelangelo – a sculptor with little painting experience – to take on the commission. They believed that, faced with a work on such a vast scale, he was bound to fail and be humiliated.”
Summing Up Christophe Eschenbach’s Philadelphia Orchestra Tenure
“There’s nothing transparent about the Eschenbach era – a time of numerous crosscurrents, no one of which defines why it was one of the shortest and messiest in Philadelphia Orchestra history.”