“Celebrating its 10th year of promoting neologisms,” the Festival XYZ has announced its Word of the Year: “attachiant(e) – a combination of attachant (captivating, endearing) and the slang word chiant (bloody nuisance) to denote someone you cannot live with but cannot live without.”
Tag: 11.27.11
Tweeting The Symphony
The challenge, Will White said, was to find something interÂesting to say about the music in 140 characters or less — such as, “This is where the chosen maiden is forced to dance to her death” and “Point of this piece: don’t mess with the Russians or they’ll write music about beating you.”
There Will Be No More Kissing Of Oscar Wilde’s Grave
“For years visitors would confine themselves to leaving gently admiring billets doux … All that changed in the late 1990s, when somebody decided to leave a lipstick kiss on the tomb. Since then lipstick kisses and hearts” have covered the tomb, damaging the stone. Henceforth there will be a glass barrier.
The Return Of The Sitcom Laugh Track
“[John] Bickelhaupt, whose formal title is ‘re-recording mixer,’ is one of just four or five craftsmen hired by showrunners to perfect the sounds of laughter. He spends his days traveling from mixing stage to mixing stage, carrying a custom-built computer that can quickly adjust the tone, volume, and even gender of an audience.”
The Great Walls In Our Heads
The Berlin Wall. The Great Wall of China. The Israel-West Bank barrier. The US-Mexico border fence that Republicans keep proposing. They may or may not keep people in or out, but they keep themselves in our minds. “Walls, then, are built not for security, but for a sense of security. The distinction is important, as those who commission them know very well.”
The World’s Most Argued-Over Monuments
“Some of the world’s most impressive monuments have backstories of bickering, which, in addition to good gossip, give travelers insights into local culture, history, and priorities. Even when a monument’s construction is well publicized, a positive reception isn’t guaranteed, whether because of differing aesthetic tastes, costliness, or partisanship.”
Ellsworth Kelly’s Curves, Rendered In Wood Grain
“From the beginning, Mr. Kelly declined to treat the material with stain or varnish. ‘When do you do something to it, that’s furniture,’ he said. The wood grain also provided a new way for Mr. Kelly to explore the intersection of the act of drawing – which he considers the basis of all of his art – and the surrealist penchant for lucky accidents.”
Will There Be A David Bowie Musical?
“Plans have been announced this weekend for the first full-scale musical based on the songs of the totemic British performer. A futuristic fantasy called Heroes: The Musical will tell the story of Major Tom, as well as the starman and a ‘young dude’ called David.”
Sultan Khan, Top Hindustani Classical Musician, Dead At 71
“The sarangi – a bowed, stringed instrument whose name means ‘a hundred colors’ and which has a well-earned reputation as an exceedingly difficult instrument to master – faced near-extinction not so long ago.” Khan was a leader in the instrument’s revival.
Esa-Pekka Salonen Wins $100K Grawemeyer Award
The composer-conductor’s Violin Concerto, commissioned for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Leila Josefowicz, “was completed and premiered in 2009 during Salonen’s emotional final weeks as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It has since been played around the world.”