“The past few years have been dominated by headlines about criminal justice and sexual assault – the latter has lately consumed even the coverage of the 2016 campaign. The cultural appetite for grim true crime storytelling, meanwhile, has never been so keen. We are seemingly more susceptible than ever to both Grace’s material and her method, to narratives about sexual violence and to blunt outrage. What happened to Nancy Grace?” Laura Bennett figures it all out.
Tag: 10.13.16
America’s Oldest Music Group
“Music has been a part of America’s history since the very beginning. In fact, America’s oldest continuously active professional music organization predates Washington, D.C.”
It Took 30 Years To Get ‘Dreamgirls’ To The West End, Says Producer
Sonia Friedman: “And so for years and years, many great producers have tried and been thwarted. I just kept persisting, and anyone who knows me knows I don’t give up. I just kept trying to get the rights. I tried so many times and failed.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.13.16
Rejoicing
Well, I think it’s thrilling that Bob Dylan won his Nobel prize. One of the most profound artists alive today. Someone who goes very deep in me. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-10-13
Colliding Ideas
Tere O’Connor Dance appears at the Joyce Theater in the second week of NY Quadrille. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2016-10-13
Other Places: Brilliant Corners … Neglected Ballads
On Brilliant Corners trumpeter, active blogger and close listener Steve Provizer not only names ballads that he believes don’t get enough attention, he also presents them in performance. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-10-13
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UK Decides To Phase Out Art History Exams Over Protests Of Art History Teachers
“Earlier this year, the board sent out a new history of art syllabus for consultation, which received widespread approval – but now it says that it has decided not to develop it for teaching in 2017. Students taking the current course will be unaffected and will be able to take their AS-level exams in 2017 and A-level exams in 2018, says the board. But this news means that once that course is phased out under government rules, they will be the last to take history of art for A-level.”
What The Literary World Is Saying About Bob Dylan Winning The Nobel
“Though Dylan was long rumored to be a contender for the Nobel, the possibility had attained a kind of mythical, some might say comic, status. And after waiting 23 years for an American to win the literature prize — Toni Morrison was our last one — wouldn’t the Swedes finally recognize DeLillo or Philip Roth or Joyce Carol Oates? You know, people who actually write literature? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.”
Jacob Weisberg Explains The Corrupting Influence Of the Attention Economy
The old cliché about advertising was, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” The new cliché is, “If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product.” In an attention economy, you pay for free content and services with your time. The compensation isn’t very good.
A Literature Nobel For Songwriting? Not Quite
Handwringing about “what is literature?” seems inevitable after the announcement that a rock star has taken the global writing community’s biggest award. But no great existential crisis is needed. The Nobel Committee could have decided that with this prize it wanted to expand the definition of “literature” to include recorded music, a hugely influential and relatively young art form that doesn’t have an award of Nobel-like prestige dedicated to it. But it seems to have declined to do so.
Playwright Dario Fo, 90
“He was best known for two works: “Accidental Death of an Anarchist” (1970), a play based on the case of an Italian railroad worker who was either thrown or fell from the upper story of a Milan police station while being questioned on suspicion of terrorism, and for his one-man show “Mistero Buffo” (“Comic Mystery”), written in 1969 and frequently revised and updated over the next 30 years, taking wild comic aim at politics and especially religion.”
Stepping Into Fred Astaire’s Tap Shoes
Corbin Bleu, who started out as a star in Disney’s High School Musical and went on to star on Broadway in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights and the 2012 revival of Godspell, talks about his role – one originated by Astaire – in the revival of the Irving Berlin musical Holiday Inn.