“Four weeks is a long time in morris dancing. Only last month, stories were circulating that Morris dancing was a dying past-time. But now, if new reports are to be believed, it’s enjoying a major comeback. Of course, morris dancing never left anywhere for it to come back to – because unlike Lily Allen, Twitter or political leaders, it is something that is entirely impervious to trends and utterly immune to what we – the public – think of it.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Will Technology Make Movie Stars Obsolete?
Nearly an hour of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button only seems like it has Brad Pitt in it. What the audience is really seeing is computer wizardry. So: How long before Hollywood decides that living, breathing movie stars are no longer necessary?
As Necessity Grows, Some Foundations Are Giving More
“At a time when most foundations are cutting back or maintaining last year’s spending, a few are doing what hedge fund manager Ken Nickerson of the Eos Foundation calls ‘counter-cyclical giving.’ They’re increasing their grants. … While Nickerson recapitalizes his foundation, others dig deeper into their shrinking endowments than would be required to simply maintain spending. There are growing cries for more to do so.”
After The Power Goes Off, An Opera Premieres In The Bar
“The world of opera — famous for its implausible plots — acquired a new one last night when a new opera ended up being been premiered in the bar due to a power cut in the auditorium. A capacity audience had flocked to the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden to see the London debut of George Benjamin’s new opera, Into the Little Hill.” Then the lights went out.
Alice Tully Hall, At Last A Harmonious Space For Music
Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s sensitive and spectacular renovation of Alice Tully Hall “triumphs because at every juncture, it avoids architectural wowmanship and directs attention to the artistic labor going on inside. … It will take some time and many concerts to be sure, but I suspect that Alice Tully Hall has become what it should have been all along: the finest home for chamber music in New York.”
Chinese Writer Is Stabbed At A Beijing Reading
“A prominent Chinese writer known for provocative, antiestablishment Web postings was stabbed and wounded during a book reading on Saturday. The writer, Xu Lai, a newspaper reporter, novelist and blogger whose satirical Internet postings are widely followed by students, journalists and the Chinese literati, may have been singled out for his writings, his friends and associates said.”
Remember, Oscar Winners: Your Speech Is A Performance
“This Sunday, some of the world’s most famous actors will face the most treacherous moment of their careers–that is, if they happen to win an Oscar. Because then they’ll have to give a speech. In theory, this shouldn’t be hard: You stand up; you say thanks; you sit down. Yet the shoals of stardom are littered with careers that have run aground thanks to catastrophic speeches.”
Mendelssohn, Firmly In Control At 200
“Felix Mendelssohn, whose two-hundredth birthday fell on February 3rd, was the most amazing child prodigy in musical history,” Alex Ross writes. “‘What about Mozart?’ you may ask. Go talk to Goethe, who heard the child Mozart in 1763 and the child Mendelssohn almost sixty years later, and who gave the palm to young Felix.”
Shepard Fairey, Retrospectively, At Boston’s ICA
“Like the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, who included a Louis Vuitton boutique in his Los Angeles retrospective, Fairey reverses a revolution achieved by Warhol, along with Roy Lichtenstein. He embraces a trend in what the critic Dave Hickey has called ‘pop masquerading as art, as opposed to art masquerading as pop.'”
McEwan Hid Rushdie Days After Fatwa Was Issued
“Twenty years almost to the day after [Salman] Rushdie had a death sentence declared against him by the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, it has been revealed that he was offered shelter by [Ian] McEwan in a cottage in the Cotswolds. There the two writers hid away shortly after the fatwa was issued on 14 February, 1989. This intimate detail is contained in a long profile of McEwan published in next week’s issue of the New Yorker.”