“How often has one sat at a first night at the opera or ballet, groaning at missed cues, horrors with costumes, disasters with lighting: one thinks they should surely have got it right by this time? … And what if indeed it is human ineptitude that conspires?” Not to mention the cascading strikes …
Tag: 07.25.10
Wyclef Jean to Run for President of Haiti
A “source close to the government” told an Ottawa-area francophone newspaper that the star singer “is only waiting for paperwork to be finalized by next week’s deadline. The current president, René Préval, is barred by Haiti’s laws from seeking a third term.”
‘What I Learned From Caravaggio’
Martin Scorsese, David LaChapelle, Peter Doig and three more artists “explain how Caravaggio’s prophetically cinematic paintings inspired them.”
Exploring Same-Sex Tango in Buenos Aires
“Two men locked in a tight embrace step in time to the mournful chords of a tango. Gustavo Aciar follows his partner’s lead, but halfway through the melancholy song, he takes charge. … ‘Gay tango takes tango to another level – the macho leader can become the sensual follower’,” said one participant.
Painter Doug Ohlson, 73
“[His] work astutely fused aspects of Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting and Minimal Art on a grand scale; his paintings sometimes measured as much as 23 feet across. The staple of his formal vocabulary was repeating vertical bars that seemed, increasingly, to levitate before clouds of vibrant contrasting color.”
The Colossus of Maroussi: Henry Miller, Devouring Greece
As World War II began, Miller escaped Paris and took a trip through Greece with pal Lawrence Durrell. “Miller, being Miller, didn’t merely nibble and float in Lotus-land: First published in 1941, [this book] … documents his attempt to devour the Hellenic experience and turn it to advantage.”
Why the Hollywood Movie Futures Market Got Squashed
Beginning in 2008, the brokerage firm Cantor Fitzgerald tried to turn the website HSX.com (for Hollywood Stock Exchange) – a sort of online fantasy league where people could bet imaginary money on films’ box office results – into an actual futures market where traders bet real money. Then all Hollywood came together to stop the scheme, even to the point of lobbying Congress.
James Franco and ‘The James Franco Project’
“Movie star, conceptual artist, fiction writer, grad student, cipher – he’s turned a Hollywood career into an elaborate piece of performance art. But does it mean anything? A critical investigation, with bathroom break.”
Charleston Symphony, Unsettled and in Limbo, Tries to Arrange 75th B’day Concert
“The Charleston Symphony Orchestra, dormant and still struggling, will try to organize a single concert for the beginning of what is supposed to be its 75th anniversary season in an effort to revitalize the ailing organization.” Yet there is currently no senior staff in place to help guide the CSO and no consensus in Charleston on how to operate or raise funds for the orchestra.
Move Over, Come Fly Away, There’s Another Sinatra Musical on the Way
Okay, it’s not, strictly speaking, a Sinatra musical; it’s a Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen/Rat Pack musical. Robin and the Seven Hoods, an adaptation of the 1964 Frank/Dino/Sammy movie which opens July 30 at San Diego’s Old Globe, incorporates such Ol’-Blue-Eyes standards as “Come Fly With Me,” “My Kind of Town (Chicago Is),” and “High Hopes.”