“We evaluate ourselves by comparing ourselves to other people. Well, if you compare yourself to other people in life, you get to see their good moments and bad moments. But if you’re comparing yourself to other people on Facebook, well, everyone is a superstar on Facebook. The result is you feel that your life is duller and duller, shabbier and shabbier. You seem less and less special, less and less competent, because everyone else is living this perfect life.”
Tag: 12.18.14
A Gajillion Gallons Of Water, A Piano, And A Concert
“The Armory’s latest installation-meets-performance piece Tears Become…Streams Become…required its staff to slowly, over the course of a 10-minute piano piece, fill the 55,000 square feet of the Wade Thompson Drill Hall with a standing pool of water that would mirror the hall’s gilded ceilings.”
The $100 Million Painting You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
“The Edsel & Eleanor Ford House quietly sold a Paul Cézanne oil painting in 2013 to a private buyer for $100 million, likely making the piece one of the 15 most expensive works of art ever sold.”
New York Times Lays Off Critic Allan Kozinn
The paper’s longtime classical critic (on staff for 23 years, a freelancer for 14 years before that), who was reassigned to the general cultural news beat in 2012, departs on Friday.
The Highs And Lows Of Classical Music In 2014 – A Roundtable
“Joining host Naomi Lewin for this discussion … are Anne Midgette, the classical music critic of The Washington Post; David Patrick Stearns, classical music critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer and for WQXR’s Operavore blog; and Zachary Woolfe, freelance classical music critic for The New York Times.” (audio)
“One Of The Most Bizarre Cultural-Political Episodes Of Recent History”
Andrew O’Hehir: “Let me see if I have this right, because the whole thing stretches credulity: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has apparently managed to kill a major Hollywood movie. … We had a choice – ‘we’ being a term of art that does not actually include you and me – of whether to stand tall for the supposed principles of free expression and free enterprise or ‘let the terrorists win.’ We let them win, with barely a moment’s hesitation. … It’s a breathtaking and total victory by a despised, isolated and impoverished nation (or by those acting on its behalf), over one of the biggest media corporations in the world.”
North Korea Is Not Funny, And “The Interview” Is Not Brave
Adrian Hong, co-founder of the refugee rescue organization Liberty in North Korea: “It takes no valor and costs precious little to joke about these things safely oceans away from North Korea’s reach. … To pretend that punchlines from afar, even in the face of hollow North Korean threats, are righteous acts is nonsense.”
U.S. Gov’t Should Pay Costs Of Releasing “The Interview” (Argues Pundit)
Jonathan Chait: “We don’t entrust for-profit entities with the common defense. And recognizing that the threat to a Sony picture is actually a threat to the freedom of American culture ought to lead us to a public rather than a private solution. … Either Washington should guarantee Sony’s financial liability in the event of an attack, or it should directly reimburse the studio’s projected losses so it can release the movie online for free.”
Watching What Might Have Been One Of The Last-Ever Screenings Of “The Interview” – With Seth Rogen
Your correspondent talks with the co-star/co-producer/co-writer of the comedy-turned-cause célèbre about why he decided to make a movie about Kim Jong-Un in the first place, negotiating with Sony about the details of the Dear Leader’s exploding head, and what he listens for at the many, many test screenings he attends.
Amazon Publishing ‘Suppresses’ Book With Too Many Hyphens
“When they ran an automated spell check against the manuscript they found that over 100 words in the 90,000-word novel contained that dreaded little line,” says author Graeme Reynolds. “This, apparently, ‘significantly impacts the readability of your book,’ and, as a result, ‘We have suppressed the book because of the combined impact to customers.'”