The 46-year-old poet, “who teaches at the University of San Francisco, has won the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award from Claremont Graduate University. His books include ‘Tea,’ ‘Lunch,’ ‘Cocktails’ and ‘Chronic.'”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
When Prokofiev Held Back On Tunefulness
Prokofiev’s “The Gambler” is “buzzy and exciting, fiercely dramatic and modern, but where are the tunes? There aren’t any. Prokofiev’s own mother reprimanded him over this when she heard him working on the orchestration.”
Blackface: A Performance Device With The Power To Shock
“Theater that shocks is, of course, in the eye (and mind) of the beholder, but most plays and musicals in recent decades have ignored blunt instruments like blackface. … For the most part, shocks onstage tend to come through incendiary language, provocative plot turns and chilling frights.”
Pearl Paint Closes In San Francisco, Mirroring Industry
“The troubled 77-year-old art supplies chain is closing the 969 Market St. store, which has been open since the mid-1990s, along with seven other stores across the country,” reflecting the fact that, as one analyst says, “the art supplies industry has not done particularly well in recent years.”
Groundbreaking Oscar Nods Don’t Indicate Wider Trend
“In terms of both box office and public awareness, 2009 might seem a particularly fruitful year for women directors,” but one expert says that “the percentage of women directors has been virtually unchanged since 1987, at 7% to 9%. … For African Americans, the percentage is even smaller, about 4%, according to the DGA….”
Met Museum Operating Deficit Grew To $8.4M In ’08-’09
“At least 250 employees,” or 14 percent of the staff, “were fired or took buyouts as the museum reported that its investments declined by more than $600 million, or 24 percent,” according to the museum’s 2008-09 annual report. “Designated gifts by donors plunged by 46 percent to $43.1 million, according to the report.”
Scottish Drama School Creating £6M Campus For Dance
The head of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama said “that he could see the school renaming itself as a result of including dance and … that changing the title to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, Dance and Drama would probably have to happen ‘sooner rather than later’.”
Kathryn Bigelow Is Poised For A Hollywood First
“Because it’s so rare that the DGA winner doesn’t go on to win an Academy Award – only six times in 61 years – odds are Bigelow could be the first woman director in the Academy’s 82-year history to crash the celluloid ceiling. … But I’m skeptical that Bigelow’s … possible win will represent any substantive change for women in Hollywood.”
At 80, Gillian Ayres Muses On The Artist’s Life
“In a funny way, in retrospect, should artists have all these things, marriages and children?” the painter asks. “It’s a big bloody question anyway. Possibly not. A lot of artists don’t.”
Our Bodies Act Out Metaphors In Language
“Research in embodied cognition has revealed that the body takes language to heart and can be awfully literal-minded. … The body embodies abstractions the best way it knows how: physically. “