Julius Eastman studied piano with the great Mieczyslaw Horszowski at Curtis, got denied tenure at Buffalo, improvised an aria during Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, frequented S&M clubs, drove away his friends – and wrote extraordinary music with unorthodox notation and titles so provocative that they couldn’t be printed in programs.
Month: October 2015
Reading John Cage’s Diaries
They are and aren’t as weird as you might expect – very Cagean, that – and they’re published them under a very Cagean title: Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse). And yes, in writing them, of course he used the I Ching; so did the editors.
Watching 100 Volunteers Dance A Twyla Tharp Piece
Jean Lenihan joins a group of ordinary folks learning and dancing in Tharp’s The One Hundreds in Los Angeles.
Dancing On Segways (It Had To Happen Eventually)
Okay, in this case they’re using hoverboards (basically Segways without the handlebars), but choreographer David Moore and his five dancers “manage to tackle a solid hip-hop routine by simply shifting their weight around.” (video)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.13.15
The Communal High of Twyla Tharp in Los Angeles
In advance of Twyla Tharp’s 4-day run at the Wallis Theater in Beverly Hills … a call went out for public volunteers to participate in a staging … read more
AJBlog: Fresh Pencil Published 2015-10-13
Ethan Hawke As “Chet Baker”
This seems to be the season for a new round of films based, more or less, on the lives of jazz trumpet players. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-10-13
Little Miss Wolfsbane
Dawn Powell and I go back a long way. I wrote about her in the New York Times Book Review in 1995, asking the same question that everybody asks: why isn’t so deliciously witty a writer more popular? … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-10-13
“Overwhelmed by Art”: My WSJ Article on Wadsworth Atheneum’s Dazzling Transformation
Can the Wadsworth Atheneum regain its former reputation as a midsized museum with outsized importance? … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-10-13
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What White People Can Do In Increasing Diversity In Theatre
“All white actors, writers, directors, designers, and audience members have a role to play as allies pushing against the pervasive gaze of whiteness. Here are seven specific steps that you can engage in. It will require sacrifice of time, friendships, gigs, money.”
Jamaican Writer Marlon James Wins Man Booker Prize
He is the first Jamaican author to win the Man Booker Prize. Receiving the award, he said a huge part of the novel had been inspired by reggae music.
Earthquake: Conde Nast Buys Pitchfork Media
The internet predictably exploded when this news broke. While most of the initial responses on social media was some variation of “whoa,” a significant number fixated on a quote in the Times report uttered by Fred Santarpia, Condé Nast’s chief digital officer, who led the acquisition.
Scans Can Now Link Brain Activity To Intelligence
“Now that neuroscientists have used maps of people’s brains to accurately predict intelligence, reality creeps ever so much closer to fiction.”
How To Thwart Art Fakes? DNA
Two years ago, the Global Center for Innovation at the State University of New York at Albany, “known for its work in bioengineering, encryption and nanotechnology, set about developing a way to infuse paintings, sculptures and other artworks with complex molecules of DNA created in the lab.”