“A medium-sized popcorn and medium soda at the nation’s largest movie chain pack the nutritional equivalent of three Quarter Pounders topped with 12 pats of butter, according to a report released today by the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
What Community Orchestras Taught Joseph Schwantner
“They are more limited in terms of their experience, and to engage a new work is a major challenge,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer says. “I’ve learned that you have to be patient; you have to give them an opportunity to digest this music and make it their own. But … I’ve seen them rise to the challenge.”
Southern California Libraries Hard Hit By Govt. Cuts
“Kim Bui-Burton, president of the California Library Assn., described conditions as ‘extraordinarily difficult.’ Never lavishly funded, libraries started to falter with last year’s credit and mortgage disasters. Now, she said, they are being battered by deep state and local cuts.”
Dancer Plans To Induce Epileptic Seizure In Performance
“Rita Marcalo has stopped taking her medication ahead of the event at The Bradford Playhouse, which the audience will be invited to film. Arts Council England, which is funding the performance, said it aimed to raise awareness about the condition.” An epilepsy charity has “urged Ms Marcalo to reconsider the event.”
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg As Music Director
More than midway through her three-year contract as music director of the conductorless New Century Chamber Orchestra, “Salerno-Sonnenberg hinted strongly that she’s inclined to stay a fourth year…. For now, New Century concerts have taken on the fascinating cast of a soloist meshing her distinctive traits with an integrated orchestral texture.”
For A Cowboy Ex-President, Stern Designs A Quiet Library
“Architectural plans released today for the $250-million, 225,000-square-foot George W. Bush Presidential Center, to be built at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, carry no hint of the swagger, bravado or taste for confrontation that Bush was known for as president.” Rather, Robert A.M. Stern’s design is handsome and contextual.
If Day-Lewis Has Two Left Feet, Nine Viewers Won’t Know
Daniel Day-Lewis told Oprah “that he managed to avoid dancing in a movie directed by Rob Marshall, who happens to be an accomplished Broadway choreographer. That’s kind of like signing up for swimming lessons and then not getting in the water.”
Live Online, Seeking Better Data On Arts’ Economic Impact
On Friday, “an assortment of academics, federal bureaucrats, and staffers from private think tanks and research organizations will assemble in Washington, and in cyberspace at www.nea.gov.” The forum is an attempt “to broaden and improve the statistical evidence” that what artists do “is not just fluff and filigree, but part of the dollars-and-cents fiber of the country.”
Publishing’s Budding Romance With The ‘Book Trailer’
“In embracing the term, the publishing industry helps itself to some Hollywood glamour. And in avoiding the most obviously appropriate word for these commercials–that is, commercials–sacrosanct literature keeps grubby commerce at an arm’s length.”
Lloyd Webber Hospitalized Again
He was readmitted when a “chronic infection” developed after his prostate cancer surgery. “His spokesmen said last month that the cancer was in its early stages and he hoped to return to work before the end of the year. But an update on his website said he now hoped to be back in the New Year.”