“It’s part of what the New Yorker calls the ‘Peter Pan market’: a vogue for youthful things (coloring books, summer camps, even faux pre-school classes) rebooted for an adult audience. And while some may bristle at the conceit – which, fair enough, can occasionally seem ripe for a Portlandia parody – it’s worth considering the merits. For some, it might even be a fast-track to recover a lost creative impulse, all over the course of a long weekend.”
Tag: 09.13.17
When Roald Dahl’s Publisher Decided He Was Too Much Of A Prick To Publish
Emily Temple recounts the time that Robert Gottlieb had finally had enough. (And “prick” is probably too mild a word.)
Movie Musicals Came Into Their Own In The 1950s. But Fred Astaire Was On The Outside Looking In
Astaire’s fate in the early fifties was something one suspects he’d never accounted for: his age was beginning to show. Of course, this was a time when elderly men still courted young women on-screen with stunning regularity, and had Astaire been a normal romantic lead, this might not have been a problem. But he was a dancer.
The Incredible New Theater At Chicago’s Navy Pier
“The public won’t get in to Chicago Shakespeare’s $35 million, 33,000-square-foot one-of-a-kind new space until Sept. 19, when James Thierree’s The Toad Knew opens. But you don’t have to wait to see the Yard – a theater where the seats can literally float in midair and the stage can morph into just about any shape imaginable. Crain’s has obtained exclusive images of the Yard’s interior, designed by Chicago’s Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture and the UK’s Charcoalblue.”
Hero Of ‘Charlie And The Chocolate Factory’ Was Originally Supposed To Be Black, Says Roald Dahl’s Widow
“The revelation about Dahl’s original wish for Charlie may surprise those who accused the author of racism in relation to the book. The allegation stemmed from the fact that the Oompa Loompas in the original version were black pygmies from Africa.”
Soprano Kiri Te Kanawa Retires After Half-Century Career
The world-renowned soprano, 73, said she had stopped performing a year ago but had not revealed her decision until now. Te Kanawa told the BBC it had taken her five years “to say the goodbye in my own mind” but wanted to decide “when it was going to be the last note”.
The Future Of Cameras Increasingly Is Computer Code
What we think of as a camera is largely a collection of software algorithms that expands with each passing year.
Write Like John McPhee? Those Days Are Probably Over
I feel incredibly lucky to make a living as a writer, but today’s luck is very different than McPhee’s in the ‘60s. In his New Yorker contributor biography, McPhee is credited with bylines on “over 100 pieces.” I laughed out loud when I read it; it’s not uncommon today for even established writers to publish that many pieces a year. These stories are not 40,000-word epic sagas about colorful men and their long journeys by truck, boat, or sled; they are shorter, on the Internet, with smaller budgets, and they are more likely to be written by women. McPhee flashes back to 1966, when he spent nearly two weeks lying on a picnic table “staring up into branches and leaves” thinking about how to start an article.
The Best Idea So Far? That We Have No Idea…
“I’d much rather live in a Universe where we discover that today’s view of physics is comically naïve. If I am so lucky as to live to see deep new discoveries about the true nature of reality, I hope to find them bizarre and shocking. In 1,000 years, physics and mathematics will probably have progressed so far that the very nature of the questions will be incomprehensible to us. Researchers will have moved on to bigger, more mind-blowing questions that today’s deepest thinkers are not yet even equipped to ask.”
Report: This Year’s Documenta In Athens Created A 7 Million Euro Deficit
“Nobody thought that the electricity bill in Athens would be horrendously high because the exhibition venues had to be cooled from 40 degrees outside temperature to 23 degrees. Immensely expensive were also the transports of the works of art from Athens to Kassel.”