Lena Horne, Stevie Wonder, Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts – the history (and present) of “Sesame Street” thrives on celebrity guests interacting with the show’s fuzzy cast of characters.
Tag: 10.21.11
Freedom Of Speech’s Best Year Ever?
“Nostalgia is a temptress who sometimes persuades us that our once-good world is racing for hell, but in terms of free speech, things are looking up.”
Sleeping Around With Great Artists – And A Camera Or Two
Museums now try to stake a claim for all hours of the day, including the ones where you’re sleeping. Sleeping on the floor, that is, in the museums themselves.
Can A Company Recover From The Loss Of Its Star? Morphoses Says Maybe
Big-name artistic director Christopher Wheeldon took off after a public spat. Now dance company Morphoses is reconfiguring just about everything in order to adapt and survive.
Doris Duke Foundation Announces Major New Arts Funding Initiative
“At a time when the lingering recession has rocked the larger arts community, individual artists have lost essential financial support from both the public and private sector. Duke hopes to fill some of that gap. The program will award 200 individual artists from the fields of contemporary dance, jazz and theatre multi-year cash awards of as much as $275,000. Individuals will be selected through an anonymous peer-review process, not through applications.”
Humans Are Getting Less And Less Violent
“The expansion of literacy, journalism, history, science – all of the ways in which we see the world from the other guy’s point of view. Feminisation is another reason for the decline. As women are empowered, violence can come down, for a number of reasons. By all measures men are the more violent gender.”
Who’s Raising The Most Money In American Arts
“The Chronicle of Philanthropy released its ranking of the nation’s top 400 charities this week, and 14 museums and performing arts groups made the list, taking in $1.2 billion combined.”
Dance Your Ph.D (Yes It’s A Contest)
“Queen’s University biologist Emma Ware is one of four winners of Dance Your PhD, a unique and lighthearted annual contest that asks researchers to convert their doctoral thesis into a dance video.”
Books: A Business Just Waiting To Go Bankrupt
“As far as I’m concerned, the book business deserves to die if for no other reason than that its business model is something out of the 1930s: send a bunch of loser Willy Lomans out as “reps,” people who don’t read and don’t understand the books they sell, and have them place the books on consignment, just as if they were old chairs that you were trying to unload at the local consignment store.”
Should Museum Walls Be White?
“In the end, as with so much that agitates the curator, this may not matter very much. Art is not interior decoration. What I really want is to be able to see the painting, appropriately lit and without distractions. The best wall colour is drab – a dreary colour that the gallery-goer does not even notice. The colours you should remember are those of the paintings.”