“We have received many offers of donations of Lego in the past days. People have shown their generosity, creative spirit and enthusiasm to become engaged in this project, and we are pleased to be the first international collection point.
Tag: 10.27.15
When Bar(n)-Storming Cellist Matt Haimovitz Colonized Columbia University Campus
“Students eating at Columbia University’s John Jay Dining Hall, an airy den reverberating with undergraduate chatter, were in for a surprise last Wednesday. When they walked in for dinner, they found Matt Haimovitz – the cellist who helped to start a trend by performing in places like an East Village punk club and a pizzeria in Jackson, Miss. – playing Bach.”
Bolshoi Ballet Gets New Director, Replacing Acid Atttack Victim Sergei Filin
“Bolshoi Theatre general director Vladimir Urin appointed Makhar Vaziev, who has led La Scala Ballet for seven years and, before that, spent 13 years at the helm of the Mariinsky Ballet. Many Russians are relieved that the choice is a former dancer with leadership experience and good taste. But questions surround this appointment.”
More Female Producers And Directors Mean More Female Crew Members, Study Finds
“Data crunched by researchers … at San Diego State University found that on films with female directors, women accounted for slightly more than half of the films’ writers. On films with male directors, by contrast, women made up 8 percent of writers. The ripple effect extends to other jobs: across the board, having a female director greatly increased the number of women in editing and cinematographer positions.”
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Selects New Director
“[Peggy] Fogelman, who currently serves as the director of collections at New York’s Morgan Library & Museum, has broad experience on both the curatorial and educational sides of museums – knowledge that could well position her to expand the Gardner’s audience and further its multidisciplinary programming.”
The Birth Of ‘The New Yorker Story’ As A Genre
Jonathan Franzen: “What made a story New Yorker was its carefully wrought, many-comma’d prose; its long passages of physical description, the precision and the sobriety of which created a kind of negative emotional space, a suggestion of feeling without the naming of it; its well-educated white characters, who could be found experiencing the melancholies of affluence, the doldrums of suburban marriage, or the thrill or the desolation of adultery; and, above all, its signature style of ending, which was either elegantly oblique or frustratingly coy, depending on your taste.”
ISIS Has Found A Way To Make Its Destruction Of Ancient Sites And Artifacts Even Worse
“According to reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the extremist militant group tied at least three prisoners to Roman pillars in the Syrian desert city of Palmyra, rigged the structures with dynamite, and blew them up Monday afternoon.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.27.15
Walid Raad’s Blurred Lines at MoMA: Does Truth Matter?
The Museum of Modern Art’s bewildering Walid Raad exhibition (to Jan. 31) “investigates distinctions between fact and fiction,” according to its press release. In truth, it blurs those distinctions in a ways that sometimes feel … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-10-27
Pat Graney and Colleen Thomas Explore Difference (Differently)
The 1960s weren’t all about Beatles, sit-ins, marches, pot, and communes. For many women, the post-war 1940s and the 1950s lingered on in spirit. Some of these women may have worn go-go boots and very short dresses, but they belonged to the unspoken club of wives who … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2015-10-27
Enough of this
This summer came a CD release which – with all respect to the major classical music forces involved – is the kind of project I wish we wouldn’t do. This was a Deutsche Grammophon recording … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-10-27
I Love Lieder, Don’t You?
It’s rare for my wife and me to feel that we are among the younger members of the audience, but this happened at the Oxford Lieder Festival 2015, “Singing Words: Poets and Their Songs.” … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2015-10-27
Lookback: could Victor Borge really play piano?
From 2005: Borge’s act resembled a straight piano recital gone wrong. He’d start to play a familiar piece like Clair de lune or the “Moonlight” Sonata, then swerve off in some improbable-sounding direction, never getting around to finishing what he started. Yet he was clearly an accomplished pianist, though few of his latter-day fans had any idea how good he’d been … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-10-27
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New Project To Use Technology To Map Inside Of Pyramids
“Among the tools used will be infrared thermography to detect temperature variations on the monuments’ exteriors, which could reveal previously unseen cavities, chambers or corridors close to the surface. With the help of drones, the team will use photogrammetry and laser scanning to make accurate 3D models of the pyramids, other monuments nearby and their general surroundings.”
Shakespeare In Translation: To Be, Or, You Know, To Kill Myself…
In the end, any new production of Shakespeare—on Broadway, TV or movies—is a kind of translation, a gambit for clarity and relevance amidst mystery. Maybe it’s the literal-mindedness of Play on! that has drawn such outrage and mockery.