“‘I think [organ concerts] would be more challenging to sell,’ said Jane Moss, vice president of programming for Lincoln Center, during a recent phone interview. ‘But we would certainly think of the organ for future White Light Festivals … or Mostly Mozart … The organ is a complicated instrument that occupies a curious niche.'”
Tag: 11.18.10
VanityFair.com Embarrasses Itself With Isabella Rossellini
From the aptly-named feature “Awkward Question Time”: Q: “You’ve done love scenes in movies before. How does [her playful animal reproduction series] Seduce Me compare? Is it more awkward when your partner is one-dimensional?” A: “Well, you know, I wrote the scripts. I designed the basic solution of the cardboard mates. It was meant to be funny. I don’t need to go to the Actor’s Studio to play it.” (It gets worse.)
Seventy-Seven Novelists, One Word for Each
“In The Novelist’s Lexicon, published Tuesday by Columbia University Press, 77 authors each come up with a single word that creates a window on their work. To be fair, a few cheat – Booker prize-winning novelist A. S. Byatt uses four words, ‘the novel as web’ – but for the most part, it’s a fascinating and strangely disciplined set of responses.”
Opera-Style Supertitles Open Up Theatre to the Hearing-Impaired
“Captioning has meant a big growth in deaf or hard of hearing theatregoers, for whom theatre is accessible like never before. … It’s great to see deaf and hard of hearing people talking passionately about shows with family and friends, and even daring to say what utter rubbish they’ve just seen.”
As If Dancing on Point Weren’t Hard Enough: Chinese State Circus’s Swan Lake
The star of this four-and-a-half-minute version starts out doing a handstand on her partner’s hands and flapping her legs like wings. She finishes with a vertical split while on point on her partner’s head.
A Susan Boyle Accomplishment That Ranks With The Beatles
“Singing sensation Susan Boyle has a No. 1 album in the United States and the U.K. simultaneously for the second time in a year – a feat not achieved for more than 40 years.”
James Frey And The Idea Factory
“Frey and some associates are trying to build a mass-media idea factory for novels and films.”
The Most-Cultured Canadians
“Calgary, in fact, is the country’s most cultural city by expenditures. In 2008, Calgarians spent $1,020 each on arts events and art works, a two-per-cent increase from 2005. Saskatoon was second in 2008, at $1,000 per capita. Canada’s most populous city, Toronto, ranks seventh ($868), Vancouver is 11th ($795) and Montreal 12th ($722).”
Patti Smith Wins National Book Award
The rock musician Patti Smith won the National Book Award for nonfiction on Wednesday night for “Just Kids,” a sweetly evocative memoir of her relationship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe and life in the bohemian New York of the 1960s and ’70s.
Mocking Professors On YouTube
Recently, clips from lectures posted on YouTube have mocked lecturers. “Taken collectively, the carefully edited clips play up familiar stereotypes about faculty: there’s the quick-tempered bore (Cornell), the liberal indoctrinator (Louisiana State) and the lazy test-recycler (Central Florida).”