“Figures out later this month from the Society of London Theatre … are expected to show 2009 was a record breaking year – with more than 14 million tickets sold. The straight play has done particularly well.” But why did this happen during an economic slump?
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
MoMA And P.S. 1 Envision A Flooded NYC
“Climate experts predict that at current rates of global warming, the city will face a tidal rise of 2 feet or more by 2080. … So MoMA has commissioned four teams of young architects to anticipate the waters’ rise and come up with new ways to break up the devastating storm surges.”
Another Thing The Brain Is Bad At: Gauging Time
“Time does seem to slow to a trickle during an empty afternoon and race when the brain is engrossed in challenging work.” But one’s memory of any given period has a significant effect on the ability to judge its duration: “if very few events come to mind, then the perception of time does not persist; the brain telescopes the interval that has passed.”
Economy Ushers In An Era Of Amateur Art-Making
“The global recession hasn’t crippled the entertainment industry, as some feared, but it has hastened its embrace of the do-it-yourself movement. From neighborhood theater troupes to bookstore readings, amateur performers are taking their place onstage. It’s less a new development than a return to an old way of life.”
Classical Music’s Red-Blue Divide
“The red states are those who love the classical tradition with a deep passion. They understand the need for contemporary music and revitalization, and subject themselves to it with a dutiful sense of obedience…. The blue states love classical music no less. But they worry that it’s dying out because it is so entrenched in the past.”
The First Amendment’s Implications For Art
“Why should ‘harmful’ art be absolutely free from government restriction under the Constitution? There are two basic reasons.”
Reappraising Eero Saarinen
Ada Louise Huxtable: Saarinen’s “dramatic departures from the conventions of modernism caused considerable unease among his peers; they acknowledged his talents but were uncomfortable with his buildings, while critics tempered their misgivings with carefully qualified praise. (Full disclosure: I was among them.)”
H’wood Theatre Director Slain In Apparent Home Invasion
When 59-year-old Bennett Bradley “didn’t show up to lead a 5 p.m. rehearsal of the Fountain [Theatre]’s West Coast premiere of ‘The Ballad of Emmett Till,’ the show’s stage manager went to his home and found his body, said Stephen Sachs, the company’s co-artistic director.”
Mammoth Competitor Points Shoppers To Indie Bookstore
After the Tesco across the street from a bookshop started selling titles at a hefty discount, the shop’s manager outlined its plight to the chain’s chief executive. Now the supermarket “has three signs in its books section advising customers that a wider range of titles are available across the road … where specialist booksellers are also on hand to advise.”
Why Conservatives Hate Avatar
“[T]he film offers a blatantly pro-environmental message; it portrays U.S. military contractors in a decidedly negative light; and it clearly evokes the can’t-we-all-get along vibe of the 1960s counterculture.” Right-wing logic holds that this is at odds with mainstream America, “and yet the film has been wholeheartedly embraced by audiences everywhere, from Mississippi to Manhattan.”