“There are strong theological precepts against the creation of likenesses of living things, and above all of religious figures, especially Muhammad. And yet lush vegetation in mosaic form garlands the façade of the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, devotional pictures of members of the prophet’s family are common among Shias, and merchants in the Tehran bazaar sell pendants with Muhammad’s portrait on them.”
Month: January 2013
Patti Page, 85
“[Her] gossamer voice on ‘The Tennessee Waltz,’ ‘The Doggie in the Window’ and other 1950s hits offered a soothing counterpart to the revolutionary new sound of rock ‘n’ roll.”
ABT Announces Dancer Exchange
“American Ballet Theater and two European dance companies are engaging in a little trans-oceanic swapping” – with Britain’s Royal Ballet and the Royal Danish Ballet.
New York Times Culture Editor To Step Down
Jonathan Landman, 60, wrote in an e-mail to colleagues, “We all know that the newsroom has to reduce its costs. No less urgent is its responsibility to cultivate a new generation of leaders. My continued presence would help accomplish neither. So it’s time to go.”
Homoerotic Paintings Lead To Uproar At Pakistan’s National College Of Arts
When the school’s academic journal published “a series of paintings depicting Muslim clerics in scenes with strong homosexual overtones, prompting threats of violence by Islamic extremists, … [officials] pulled all its issues out of bookstores and dissolved its editorial board.” A court is considering blasphemy charges.
Gay Parents Find Surprisingly Swift Acceptance On Israeli TV
The NBC sitcom The New Normal and an Israeli dramedy series titled Mom and Dads have “won the battle for acceptance. For the most part Israeli society … has reacted to the baby bump and the programs about it with nonchalance. Even the country’s sizable religious segment has merely shrugged at the series.”
Beate Sirota Gordon, 89, Impresario Of Asian Arts In America
While she is most revered for having seen to it that women’s rights were included in Japan’s postwar constitution, she was “one of the first people to bring traditional Asian performing arts to audiences throughout North America” – first at the Japan Society and then, for 20 years, at the Asia Society.
The Strange Story Of William Faulkner’s Only Children’s Book
The Wishing Tree “a sort of grimly whimsical morality tale, somewhere between Alice In Wonderland, Don Quixote, and To Kill a Mockingbird.” (It is also a rather egregious case of regifting.)
Ill-Starred Rebecca May Make It To Broadway In 2013
“The New York producer of the scandal-plagued musical Rebecca said on Wednesday that he would try to open the show later this year on Broadway, where a planned production fell apart this fall when several investors were revealed to be concoctions of a rainmaking middleman.”
How Theater Companies Market That Play About The Guy With The Hat
“The Mother****** With the Hat is a play that has a marketing challenge built directly into its title. How do you say a name that contains the mother of all obscenities? How do you use a title that can’t be printed in most newspapers? As it turns out, each theater company has its own way of coping.”