More than four decades down the road from his early triumph, Safdie is at a crossroads. The challenge, he says, is “to solve the extraordinary problems that face us, like sustainability, congestion, density, megaÂscale, transportation issues, and integration into the urban fabric.”
Tag: 06.03.11
Are The Blues Headed For Extinction?
“Can the blues endure? And even if it does, will it remotely resemble the raw, gritty sound of its origins? More than a few musicians still playing believe there’s life yet in a music that opened the door to jazz and set the stage for rock and rap, hip-hop and R&B.”
Is Recursive Thought What Distinguishes Humans From Animals?
“Cogito ergo sum – I think, therefore I am – was coined by René Descartes in 1637…. [His maxim] turns out to be of the most famous examples of recursion, the process of embedding ideas within ideas that humans seem to do so effortlessly. So effortlessly and so skilfully, in fact, that it’s beginning to look like the one true dividing line between animals and humans that may hold up to close scrutiny.”
Top D.C. Contemporary Dance Company Lays Off All Its Dancers
“CityDance Ensemble … is about to dissolve. Artistic director Paul Emerson has submitted his resignation, effective June 30, and none of the group’s eight professional dancers had their contracts renewed earlier this year.” CityDance does plan to continue its educational programs.
Five Reasons Why E-Books ‘Aren’t There Yet’
“There are no two ways about it: E-books are here to stay. … But for all of the benefit they clearly bring, e-books are still falling short of a promise to make us forget their paper analogs. For now, you still lose something by moving on.”
Pipe-Organ ATM Is Hit Of Venice Biennale
“The brainchild of the artist duo Allora & Calzadilla, it is a pipe organ with an ATM embedded in its belly that is computer-programmed to play a tune when a person puts in their PIN number. … Naturally it has become quite the hot spot, with lines forming outside the pavilion all day.”
V.S. Naipaul’s Latest Rant: Women Writers Are ‘Unequal’ To His Greatness
“Pity V.S. Naipaul: every couple of years or so the dyspeptic writer makes a pronouncement so extreme that it sounds like a plea for attention, a desperate attempt to shock, yet he is so profligate with his scorn that he is nothing if not predictable. This time around, his target is the woman writer, a species whose work and ‘narrow’ concerns, he says, is ‘unequal to me’.” (He makes a special point of picking on Jane Austen.)
Philharmonic Orchestra Of The Americas Suspends Operations
“The orchestra, based in New York, was founded in 2004 by Alondra de la Parra, a rising young Mexican conductor, and made a specialty of Latin American music. It toured in Mexico recently in honor of the country’s bicentennial and gave three or four concerts a year in New York.”
Was Leonard Bernstein A Better Composer Than He Gets Credit For?
“We think we seek excellence and genius, yet we frown and tut-tut when someone goes about it in a nonconformist way. Exhibit A: Leonard Bernstein … Had he only (focused more, composed more, been more disciplined – insert your remedy of choice here), he would have been truly great. So runs the party line. Bernstein’s greatness, in fact, lay in his being exactly who he was.”
Wildly-Hyped Nude Canadian Dance Work Polarizes London Critics
The piece is Dave St-Pierre’s Un peu de tendresse bordel de merde!, running at Sadler’s Wells after a lot of advance press coverage. “To one critic, it was moving and tender, ‘truly remarkable and not to be missed’; to another, ‘a heap of ordure so ripe you could fertilise your petunias with it’.” (Petunias prefer urine, actually.)