“What if we could choose which memories of the holiday season – or any season – will stand out most vividly and which we’re content to let fade with the passage of time? While it isn’t possible to do this with an exacting, sci-fi level of precision, it is possible to use some basic findings about human memory to increase the odds that you will remember that amazing New Year’s party but forget that Christmas-dinner squabble over Obamacare.”
Tag: 12.23.14
Streaming Liberates Obsessive Collectors From Endless Record Shows (And More)
“I had arrived in the promised land — or at least Spotifyland — no more bulky records and CDs strewn about my home requiring alphabetization, no more ripping, no more glitchy files downloaded nefariously from KaZaa needing to be retitled and volume equalized, no more agonizing how I would parse my eMusic allowance, no more checking and unchecking tracks in iTunes so I could get just the right 19,873 songs on my iPod classic.”
Ballet Is Ruthlessly Darwinian, Not To Mention Dangerous
“Ballet is a high-risk activity, and a slippery patch of stage or a split-second’s inattention in a leap can spell serious injury and months of rehabilitation.”
Cuban And U.S. Artists Have Always Found Ways To Collaborate Around The Embargo
“The announcements by Obama and Castro won’t affect the particulars of any of these projects in progress. But the move does have many people in the cultural sphere considering what might be artistically possible between the two countries down the line.”
Funding Is A Struggle Even For Big-Name Hollywood Projects, If They Feature African Americans
“Despite America’s changing demographics, Hollywood’s most powerful industry leaders have been slow to respond to a demand for movies that reflect cultural and racial shifts that have long been underway.”
Writing About The Past When Evidence Is Slim
“I was very interested in the way that the past was just continually reinvented as new ideas of homosexuality came along. It left me interested in not just the gay past, but how we write about the gay past and how we claim it or deny it. That led straight into my novels.”
Google Starts To Publish Song Lyrics Online
“According to reports, Google has begun including lyrics in the results pages for certain search terms . When US-based users search for phrases like “stairway to heaven lyrics” or “comfortably numb lyrics”, the words to these songs appear at the top of the page, above the corresponding listings for third-party sources.”
Conductor Jerzy Semkow, 86
“Semkow’s idiosyncratic and somewhat imperial personality didn’t always mesh well with American orchestras; this was a man sometimes seen strutting around backstage at Orchestra Hall wearing a cape. Semkow favored broad tempos, fleshy textures and flowing phrases that sighed with lyricism. He knew what he wanted, and it was usually a kind of clarified spiritualism, beauty and understanding.”
“Mozart In The Jungle” And The Backstage Drama
The new show, based on Blair Tindall’s book, “Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs and Classical Music,” is a lighter and more diffuse production. At times, it feels like a smarter, less melodramatic version of a backstage series like “Smash” (or a less over-the-top version of a superior backstage story like “Slings and Arrows”).
Daniel Barenboim Latest To Interrupt Performance To Scold Audience
“Madam, I am trying to give you my best, but you have no respect for it! Those who take photographs during concerts are badly educated. I have asked at every concert. The first time nicely, but now it’s serious.”