“Jane Austen heroines may pink endearingly at a subtle breach in manners; millions more glow like a lava lamp in what feels like a public disrobing: the face, suddenly buck-naked.” But researchers have some good news for blushers. “In a series of recent studies, psychologists have found that reddening cheeks soften others’ judgments of bad or clumsy behavior, and help to strengthen social bonds rather [than] strain them.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Reconstructing The Past In A Different Sort Of Primitive Art
“Picasso never had to explain that his mistresses weren’t actually cubic, but [Viktor] Deak has taken grief over as little as a flexed knee.” Such is life when you’re a high-profile paleoartist. “If you find yourself face to face in a museum with Homo habilis, Australopithecus afarensis or Paranthropus boisei, you may be looking at his work. Many of the images of hominids in the new Hall of Human Origins at the American Museum of Natural History are his….”
Salinger Sues To Block Catcher Sequel
“Author JD Salinger is taking legal action to block the publication of a book billed as a follow-up to his classic novel The Catcher in the Rye. According to legal papers filed in New York, the 90-year-old’s lawyers called the book a ‘rip-off pure and simple’. 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye features someone similar to Holden Caulfield from Salinger’s work, which he says only he is able to use.”
Couples Can Wed Where Romeo & Juliet (Sort Of) Wooed
“The 13th century mansion of the Cappello family — believed to be the Capulets of William Shakespeare’s tragic play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ — has for years been a place of pilgrimage for lovers worldwide, who have scrawled love messages on its walls. Now, Verona’s town council is offering couples the chance to follow in the footsteps of Shakespeare’s ‘star-crossed lovers’ and see for themselves ‘what light from yonder window breaks.'”
How One Author Smashed Romance Novels’ Color Barrier
“Some people sneer at paperback romance novels, but they’re the most prolific, profitable arm of the publishing industry — even despite the recession. And before 1980, all the damsels being clasped to hard male chests had been white. Lots of passion, zilch diversity. Then, under the pen name Rosalind Welles, journalist Elsie Washington published Entwined Destinies.”
After 60 Years With NY Phil, First Clarinetist Says Goodbye
Stanley Drucker, the New York Philharmonic’s first clarinetist, “has played with the Philharmonic for the past 60 years, or nearly one-third of the orchestra’s history. When he retires at the end of June, he will have played in more than 10,200 concerts. And Drucker will be going out with a bang, including with one of his signature pieces, the Clarinet Concerto by Aaron Copland.”
Gala Planning On A Budget Of … Way Less Than Last Year
“Now — in an era of belt-tightening — funding and promoting a grandiose art form is a tricky business. Especially when you have $150,000 less to spend on the ball this year,” as is the case for Washington National Opera’s annual Opera Ball, budgeted this year at $250,000. “The ball planners are trying to make do without anyone’s realizing they are spending a lot less.”
Smells Like Green Spirit: How The Scent Opera Played Out
“In a comic touch, it was announced that the character of Fresh Air was indisposed, and since no replacement existed in New York, the role would be performed by Clean Air, which combined a bracing, clinically pure scent with wistful music, rather like Copland in his bucolic Americana mode.”
Vandals Hit Rome’s Ara Pacis Museum
“Vandals have splashed red and green paint onto the back wall of the controversial modern museum, the Ara Pacis, in Rome. They also left a toilet outside and several rolls of toilet paper. The museum, designed by the American architect Richard Meier, was opened in 2006…. Many criticised the building, in Rome’s historic centre, as too modern, too large, and out of character.”
Another Thing Theatre Is Good For: Empathy
“W.H. Auden’s famous line about the relative ineffectuality of art … is no doubt correct when it comes to legislative action. But artists have another power, no less far-reaching for being unseen and immeasurable — the ability to broaden our sensibility by inviting us to experience life through another’s eyes.” That’s why the Obamas’ visit to Broadway was particularly apt at a moment when the word “empathy” has the right up in arms.