When Emily Nussbaum saw that notorious televised Cabinet meeting, she realized she had to go back and look at The Apprentice.
Author: Matthew Westphal
With Foreign Actors Flooding Peak-TV Hollywood, Somebody Has To Teach Them Good American Accents – Here’s One Of The Teachers
“Television viewers, exposed to hundreds of different dialects every day, are increasingly aware of the tiniest differences in how people speak, even as the number and degree of distinctions continue to expand. … But the specificity isn’t relegated to stars. [Coach Samara] Bay says she was recently dispatched to the set of another TV show to work on a bit player’s Haitian Creole.”
Stephen Sondheim Is Fine With A Female Bobby In ‘Company’
“If you’ve got somebody as distinguished and inventive and good as [director] Marianne Elliott, and she says, ‘I would love to do Company with a female central character.’ … What is there to lose? It can only make the play either interesting or, if you dislike it … dislikable … but still. I’m fumfering here, but the point is: That’s what keeps the theaters alive. So I’m always open.”
They’re Still Making Violins In Stradivari’s Hometown
“In under three minutes, you’ll meet three violin makers who love what they do and are proud to carry on their city’s rich tradition. As you could probably imagine, building instruments of this quality takes time; one luthier reveals she only make a handful in a given year.” (video)
Snopes, The Internet’s Favorite Myth-Debunker, Says It’s Being ‘Held Hostage’
“So, what’s going on? Well, it probably won’t surprise you that there’s a startup tech company and a lawsuit involved. There are claims and counterclaims. But if you want to know the gory details that are available in the court filings, here we go.”
The Old Master Still-Life That Was Looted By A Soviet Spy And Crossed The Atlantic Four Times
“The story behind the work, [Balthasar van der Ast’s Flowers in a Wan-Li Vase,] which was originally part of the collection of the Suermondt Ludwig Museum in Aachen and then went missing for 75 years, is fit for Hollywood.”
Star Of Bolshoi’s Aborted ‘Nureyev’ Ballet Speaks (By The Way, It Had No Nudity)
“When such a huge collective [as the Bolshoi Ballet], after being told of the cancellation in the morning, still musters the strength to go out and perform in the evening – it’s nothing short of a miracle. It’s no longer just about the job, but something much more.” (Also, “all the talk about nudity is false. I don’t think something of that sort would be possible on the Bolshoi’s stage.”)
Berkshire Museum To Sell 40 Works To Fund $60M ‘Reinvention Plan’
“In addition to two Norman Rockwell paintings, Shuffleton’s Barber Shop and Shaftsbury Blacksmith Shop, which were previously disclosed, the list includes two [mobile] sculptures by Calder, [and] paintings by [Frederic] Church [and Albert Bierstadt] of the Hudson River School … The [reinvention] plan includes adding $40 million to [the museum’s] endowment, currently about $8.6 million, and a $20 million renovation of its South Street building.”
The Ballerina Who Can ‘Suspend Time Altogether’ – Alastair Macaulay On NY City Ballet’s Tiler Peck
“Most of us, most of our days, are subject to time. We follow calendars and clocks like slaves. Great dancers, however, seem to govern time, to find and possess it without haste and even, for moments, to suspend it altogether. The music’s pulse runs on apace; but they pack every measure with important-seeming activity, now and then playing with the beat, here a hairbreadth behind and there a bit ahead of the music, sometimes pausing miraculously amid the pressing momentum of the dance.”
Opera Tampa’s Artistic Director Suddenly Resigns
“[Daniel] Lipton, 76, was the company’s second artistic director, succeeding 17-year director Anton Coppola in 2012. He had completed five years of a six-year employment agreement … His resignation is effective immediately.”