“I’m slowing up with age, I have much more contempt than I used to. … Mother Nature is a pain in the ass. She never knows when to stop. … When was the world supposed to end last, two months ago or whatever? It was a lovely thought.”
Tag: 09.24.11
How HBO Has Changed TV
“This year, for the 10th successive year, HBO, the pay-TV network, received more prime-time Emmy awards than any other network.”
Do We Live In An Especially Violent Age? Not At All.
Steven Pinker: “Believe it or not, the world of the past was much worse. Violence has been in decline for thousands of years, and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in the existence of our species.”
Sale Of Clyfford Still Paintings A Problematic Start For New Museum
“At the very least, the sale is a messy start for a worthwhile new addition to Denver’s cultural scene.”
Battle In Moscow Over Russia’s Oscar Nominee
“A row has broken out over Russia’s nomination for the best foreign language film at the Oscars after the most expensive movie in the country’s history” – Nikita Mikhalkov’s Burnt by the Sun 2: Citadel – “was chosen despite being a flop and panned by the critics.”
Des McAnuff – The Leader Stratford Always Wanted?
For all the grumbling and sniping aimed at McAnuff’s commitments outside the Stratford Festival and at his showy Broadway-bound transfers, “both McAnuff’s fans and his detractors love the way he has transformed the near-monochromatic company into something far more multicultural” – and ended the festival’s relative isolation from the wider theatrical world both within and outside Canada.
Menil Collection Returns Byzantine Frescoes To Cyprus
“Houston’s Menil Collection on Friday said it had agreed to return the 700-year-old wall paintings to the Greek Orthodox Church in Cyprus, ending a long-term loan arrangement” established after Dominique de Menil helped ransom the frescoes from looters.
Finding Felliniesque Scenes In Real-Life Rome
“The further away one stands from Rome and Italy, the more likely one is to read [many of the director’s fantastical set pieces] as the work of a genial fantasist. Spend some time in the Eternal City, and you realize that in many respects Fellini was an out-and-out realist.”
Utilitarians Are Not Nice People: Study
You know the utilitarian credo: Jeremy Bentham’s “the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.” A pair of researchers disigned a study “to ask what sort of people actually do have a utilitarian outlook on life. Their answers, just published in Cognition, are not comfortable.”