Making Ballet (Explicitly) Queer

“Queerness specifically in ballet is a funny thing; ballet does have a history of having a lot of gay men perform it, and you can read into certain ballets’ narratives about gay men. There’s a lot of coding there. So it’s not like there hasn’t been any queerness in ballet, but related to the representation of women, I don’t think there has been.”

Ursula LeGuin: My Beef With Amazon

“If you think Amazon is a great place to self-publish your book, I may have a question or two in mind, but still, it’s fine with me, and none of my business anyhow. My only quarrel with Amazon is when it comes to how they market books and how they use their success in marketing to control not only bookselling, but book publication: what we write and what we read.”

Supertitles Have Saved Opera, Says Dramaturg

Cori Ellison: “In a perfect world, everybody would understand every language and every singer’s diction would be perfect, and we wouldn’t need supertitles. That is never going to happen and it never has been the case. … Also, you can read the libretto of Barber of Seville until the cows come home but it’s not going to give you the same moment-to-moment comprehension as when you’re in the theater and seeing something that is so coordinated with the translation of it.”

Dust On Our Furniture, Dust On Our Minds

“Dust is everywhere. We contribute to its multiplication through our polluting industries, by wearing clothes and using things around us, and in the course of merely living – shedding skin cells, hair, and other byproducts of our life. But we also are it. Both the Bible and William Shakespeare would have us believe as much.”

David Byrne: In A World Swimming In Choice – Algorithms Or Curation?

“Our past choices in all areas can be analysed to predict future choices. Our taste in music, movies, books, news articles and clothes can be analysed – but also our sexual proclivities, political alliances and moral decisions. Those can be deduced and used to make recommendations. Everything we think we are, it seems, can be predicted, the probabilities sifted – and the chances are that what we do will fall inside the bell curve of predicted behaviour. Free will? Are you kidding?”

Harmonia Mundi Record Label Sold

“Independent music group [PIAS] is acquiring the established French record label and distributor Harmonia Mundi, according to local reports. Established by Bernard Coutaz in Paris in 1958, Harmonia Mundi remains one of the biggest independent players in the classical music sector.”