“Do you want to see my vocal cords? I want to show you my vocal cords. For a singer it’s like you are naked. Like you take off your clothes for Playboy. … Nobody is showing the cords because if they are not healthy you can see it. I wanted to put them in the last album but Sony said ‘no Simone, you cannot put them in the book’. I said ‘why not?'”
Tag: 09.02.13
Seeking Ancient Burmese Art For A New York Debut
Curators are searching “among hundreds of rarely seen ancient objects in the neglected museums and dusty storerooms they have been scouring across Myanmar as they prepare for a 2015 exhibit at the Asia Society in New York City that will celebrate the nation’s long-hidden Buddhist art.”
At Hollywood Bowl, Arguments Over Giant New Video Screens
Many patrons, especially the ones way up the hillside, are grateful to be able to see what’s happening on the faraway stage; others find the screens a garish, ham-fisted intrusion on a beautiful natural setting. “The objections are mostly being raised by people who attend classical concerts; there has been no sign of protest from, say, the Vampire Weekend crowd.”
On The Architecture Of Prisons
“Just as prisons in the U.S. are now designed to look not just secure and largely windowless but so nondescript that they practically disappear, architecture firms often coat their prison-design work in several layers of euphemism. … But thanks to a growing number of factors – some within the architecture profession, some political, others in pop culture – prison design is shedding some of that carefully managed anonymity.”
Foundation To Sell 10 de Koonings to Fund Programs
“Now, to raise more than $30 million for an endowment that would support scholarly and educational initiatives, the foundation has decided to sell 10 paintings in a particularly grand way.”
Libraries Reinvent Just When You Think They’re Obsolete
“Today the solid, reassuring presence of the civic library is threatened, and not just by government cuts; the internet, we are told, is obviating the need for books. Yet the recent explosion in the building of big, spectacular and self-consciously symbolic libraries around the world would seem to contradict that idea.”
Attitudes About Museums Selling Art Changing In UK?
“Even ten years ago, the museum profession as represented by the Museums Association was adamantly opposed to sales. The asssociation now takes a more pragmatic line, influenced by the Watts Gallery’s application to sell two paintings to rescue the gallery from near-collapse; the works were sold in 2008.”
In The Age Of Computerization, Which People Will Succeed?
“Increasingly, machines are providing not only the brawn but the brains, too, and that raises the question of where humans fit into this picture — who will prosper and who won’t in this new kind of machine economy?”
Edinburgh Festival – More Tickets Sold, Less Money Made
“A total 158,500 tickets were issued this year, up 22,000 on last year and just short of the 166,000 in 2003. Box office income was £2.43 million, the lowest since Jonathan Mills took over as director in the autumn of 2006.”
The Taboo Against Critics Discussing The Play They’re Reviewing – Is It Ridiculous?
Lyn Gardner: “Some years ago I took my dad with me to the theatre. There were interval drinks for critics and guests in a small room. My father walked in among the assembled critics and asked loudly: ‘So are we all enjoying it, then?’ Everyone froze as if he had just lobbed a hand grenade into the room.”