“Was the regional arts movement of the second half of the twentieth century just a transition phase for the arts in America? Will the Baby Boom generation be the last one to routinely attend live, fully professional performances?”
Tag: 10.22.13
What Did Ancient Greek Music Sound Like? Scholars Are Beginning To Figure That Out
“The music of ancient Greece, unheard for thousands of years, is being brought back to life by Armand D’Angour, a musician and tutor in classics at Oxford University. He describes what his research is discovering.”
The Sad Decline Of Wikipedia
“The volunteer workforce that built the project’s flagship, the English-language Wikipedia–and must defend it against vandalism, hoaxes, and manipulation–has shrunk by more than a third since 2007 and is still shrinking. Those participants left seem incapable of fixing the flaws that keep Wikipedia from becoming a high-quality encyclopedia by any standard, including the project’s own.”
How Architects Are Rethinking Rebuilding After Superstorms
“The approach here has been, rebuild bigger, better, faster, but there’s a real danger to that.”
Maybe Alice Munro Won’t Retire After All
Says the newest Nobel literature laureate, “Every day I have mixed messages to myself over whether I will retire. I have promised to retire but now and then I get an idea.”
Ahhh. So That’s Why We Like Banksy
“I suddenly got what the reaction to Banksy is about: It’s being part of the reaction to a Banksy. It’s a multiplying communal occasion, friendly, a way to talk to strangers and share a piece of New York. It’s anti-Establishment, anti-capitalist, and anti-art-world enough to add a frisson of libertarian rebellion and take-it-to-the-street cred.”
Tamara Rojo Is Getting Attention For English National Ballet
By hiring Alina Cojocaru away form the Royal Ballet and commissioning new dances from the likes of Akram Khan and Russell Maliphant, ENB’s new director (herself a Royal Ballet star) is getting the London-based journalists from the national press to turn out in such unglamorous spots as Milton Keynes for this touring company’s programs.
The Oscars Do Matter (Some), Despite The Cineastes’ (Justified) Grousing
Andrew O’Hehir: “The Oscars are simultaneously a vapid, soul-sucking vacuum that takes up way too much bandwidth in our culture, and also a central cultural and political text that’s overloaded with all kinds of meanings.”
Why Judy Blume, Jules Feiffer, Maya Angelou Et Al. Needn’t Fret About Education Reform
“This morning, over 120 children’s book authors and illustrators sent a letter to President Barack Obama expressing concern for ‘our readers,’ a.k.a. tots through tweens. The undersigned… say they fear the preponderance of testing in American schools keeps children from learning to love to read.” Nora Caplan-Bricker looks at what the letter got right and wrong.
Researchers Study Impact Of Dance On Parkinson’s Disease
“Anecdotally, at least, dance has been found to temporarily alleviate some symptoms of Parkinson’s, or PD, a progressively debilitating neurological disorder that can cause tremors, rigid muscles, balance problems and slowed or frozen movements.”