Marcelo Gleiser: “We don’t have to look for the mind of God in Nature and try to express it through our equations. Imperfect Nature has plenty to offer, if we are willing to embrace its message. The search for an all-embracing theory of Nature inspired by beauty and perfection is misguided, rooted in the monotheistic culture that has for so long dominated Western thought.”
Tag: 08.31.10
Founder of Washington’s Studio Theatre Departs After 35 Years
Joy Zinoman: “[To] feel the responsibility of it being shared and also personally not having to measure out my life in coffee spoons – the thought of freedom is really delicious to me. On the other hand, my relationships with people there are also very deep, so that’s extremely difficult to figure out how we separate.”
Mexico City’s Eli Broad? Carlos Slim to Open Museum
“Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, will soon open a new museum in one of the poshest areas of his native Mexico to house his collection of artwork by French sculptor Auguste Rodin, considered the biggest outside France.”
The Live Arts Brewery (LAB): Philly Fringe Does Theater R&D
Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe’s new program “pays a handful of theater artists, dancers, and musicians (at this point all local) to create work. It gives them the space to do it, the equipment to do it right, small audiences to react as it evolves, and the oversight of a major-festival producer to guide it to polished completion.”
Ballet at Shanghai World’s Fair Cancelled Over Dedication to Tibet
Composer Pete Wyer’s The Far Shore “was created for the Shanghai Expo and was to be premiered next week as the highlight of the event’s ‘UK National Day’. But the British Council and English National Ballet cancelled the performance after learning of the [work’s] dedication [to the people of Tibet], saying … the piece had become ‘a political vehicle’.”
The Problem With Architecture Exhibitions
“[They] fixate on trying to represent buildings that are missing. Photographs, drawings and pretentious wall texts only highlight the fact that yours is a second-hand experience.” But this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale “is much more about what should happen inside buildings, the pure experience of space.”
The Bedbug Tweet That Made The Toronto Film Festival Crazy
“Less than 10 days from the annual Toronto International Film Festival, a Twitter tweet claimed a moviegoer had been bitten by bedbugs at one of the main festival venues, Scotiabank Theatre. Within hours, the scare story zapped through cyberspace, capturing unflattering headlines on such tabloid websites as Hollywood Reporter and Perez Hilton.”
Will Universities Stop Assigning “Whole” Books?
“My own peculiar worry about Academe 2020, offered with less than 20/20 foresight, may seem less catastrophic: the death of the book as object of study, the disappearance of “whole” books as assigned reading. Does that count as a preposterous figment of extreme academe, or is it closer than we think?”
Former London Philharmonic Finance Chief Pleads Guilty to Embezzlement
Cameron Poole “admitted charges of fraud by abuse of position and acquiring and using criminal property during a brief hearing at Southwark Crown Court yesterday.”
Alastair Macaulay: “I Believe That Criticism Begins Not in Knowledge But in Ignorance”
“I spent all my early years feeling – rightly – that I didn’t know enough and that I didn’t have enough experience. I realize now that the sense of not knowing enough is a good way to feel. ” A lengthy Q&A with the chief dance critic of The New York Times.