“It has been a huge year for museum construction, with many institutions—public and private, established and upstart—spending, in total, hundreds of millions of dollars on new buildings, with even more on the way.”
Tag: 06.27.15
The Worst Act Of All Time – Perhaps By Design
The Cherry Sisters’ “variety act included original music, bass drum thumping, poetry, mouth harp playing, inspirational recitations, essay reading, fake hypnosis and other artistic expressions. And the audience responded to the whole shebang by hurling vegetables, shouting interjections and behaving rudely.”
Why Theatre Basically Sucks (Except When An Actor Entirely Forgets The Lines)
“The vast majority of plays are distinctly average. They are fairly well written, fairly well acted and fairly well staged. But they do not reflect how people actually speak because dialogue in most modern plays is generally produced to show how clever the writer is or how gifted the actor delivering it is. The tickets are expensive. The seats are uncomfortable. The audiences are pretentious and pleased with themselves, laughing loudly to show they get obscure jokes and cultural references.”
Remember That Photo Of The Nine-Year-Old Smoking?
“When she came along and took those photos, I thought, ‘Well, hey, people will see me and this may get me the attention that I want; it may change things for me,’ ” Ellison says. She thought someone would see the images and come rescue her. “I had thought that that might have been the way out. But it wasn’t.”
The President’s ‘Amazing Grace’ And The Political Power Of Music
“When it comes to political leaders, it’s a fine line between human and unbecoming, and the line gets ever-thinner in a social-media age where moments can be highlighted, repeated and parsed ad infinitum. If the singing isn’t good, it can become a punchline; if it is, it can look glib or narcissistic.”
Why Is The Academy Suddenly Getting More International (Again)?
The Best Foreign Film category’s “apparent magnanimity was said to have emanated out of a desire to celebrate great international works, but many saw right through it: it was at least as much about giving Academy members a specific way of honoring foreign language films so that they wouldn’t necessarily feel compelled to honor them in categories in which Hollywood films were also competing.”
Nina Simone’s Music Is More Relevant Than Ever
“For Simone, who lived next door to Malcolm X in Mt. Vernon, New York, and whose first interaction with Martin Luther King, Jr. involved a heated declaration that her activism was on the ‘by any means necessary’ part of the scale, the tune bore none of the turn-the-other-cheek wholesomeness of other protest songs. ‘Mississippi Goddam’ was also an upshot of Simone’s time spent in the care of intellectual co-conspirators like Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, and Stokely Carmichael.”
How Art Is Helping Charleston Unite After The Massacre
“People use creativity to make sense of all of this. They use the arts to express these deep emotions of sorrow and pain and loss. … The arts can do that. They can help us heal.”
Why Are Movies Having Such A Blockbuster Year?
“It’s been a phenomenal six months for blockbusters, with Avengers; Age of Ultron and Fast and Furious 7 also breaking the $1bn barrier – an achievement that was almost unheard of until a few years ago.”
International Tourists Love ‘Friends,’ And Warner Bros Wants Them On Set
“Once an afterthought, the two-hour studio tour has become a significant and increasingly fast-growing business for Warner Bros. The tour employs about 200 tour guides and support staff, up from a handful a decade ago.”