“As BuzzFeed‘s quizzes really started gaining steam a few years ago, a deluge of think-pieces attempted to make sense of why people just can’t get enough of them, even when they clearly have little to do with reality. Reasons included narcissism, existential searching, and boredom. … These probably are all true, to some extent. But they overlook something deeper about the nature of personality itself.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
‘Meatballs’ – An Oral History Of The Movie That Changed Both Comedy And Summer Camp
“We sat down with several members of the Meatballs cast and crew” – including director Ivan Reitman and producer Dan Goldberg – “to talk about their experiences, both in front of and behind the camera, making the movie that still gives us goosebumps whenever we hear that child choir sing, ‘Are you ready for the summer?'”
Hell’s Mapmakers: Charting Dante’s Inferno, Circle By Circle
“In addition to being among the greatest Italian literary works, Divine Comedy also heralded a craze for ‘infernal cartography,’ or mapping the Hell that Dante had created. … There are several theories for why it was so important then to delineate Dante’s Hell, including the general popularity of cartography at the time and the Renaissance obsession with proportions and measurements. However, given the inherent limitations of mapping a fictional world, there was some debate between scholars over the specifics.”
How To Fix The Met Museum? Benjamin Millepied, Nico Muhly, And Cheech Marin (Among Other) Weigh In
“A range of Met-ophiles – artists and archaeologists, chefs and curators, designers and D.J.s, playwrights and performers – offer their own ideas and expectations for how a new director can rethink the world’s greatest museum for a new century. Some of these suggestions are bold, others more whimsical, but all of them come from people who want nothing more than to see the museum on solid ground.”
The Death Of The Print Encyclopedia (And The Life And Death Of Encarta)
“We take Wikipedia for granted these days, but the encyclopedia on disc was a big deal – especially because it was both cheaper and smaller than the alternative. Today’s Tedium dives into the history of the electronic encyclopedia. Eat your heart out, Encarta.”
Blouin Artinfo Laid Off Staff, Outsourced Editorial To India And Used Fake Bylines: Report
In late May, all the editorial staff of Artinfo and Louise Blouin’s other art puiblications (Modern Painters, Art + Auction) were given two weeks’ notice and told they could reapply as freelancers. Then, reports Page Six, “owner Louise Blouin outsourced the editorial to India. But to make it seem as if there were still a cosmopolitan staff, articles were given bylines with hilariously generic international names.”
At The Bolshoi Ballet, Makhar Vaziev Is Watching You
“Soon after becoming the ballet director at the Bolshoi Theater, Makhar K. Vaziev installed a large flat-screen television next to his desk that allows him to monitor the rehearsal rooms and the two main stages – the screen divided into nine squares. On a recent afternoon, … he watched as Elvina Ibraimova rehearsed onscreen, then called the studio to tweak a variation. … At first, the dancers and ballet teachers were startled at this Big Brother method of remote supervision, he said, but he seems to want them to know that he is always there.”
Voice Of Kermit The Frog Fired For ‘Unacceptable Business Conduct’; He Calls Dismissal ‘A Betrayal’
Steve Whitmire, 58, had been voicing the Muppets’ flagship character for the 27 years since Jim Henson died. He says, “The only thing I’ve done my whole adult life, and it’s just been taken away from me. I just couldn’t understand why we couldn’t resolve this.” The head of the Muppets Studio, on the other hand, says, “We raised concerns about Steve’s repeated unacceptable business conduct over a period of many years, and he consistently failed to address the feedback.”
Police Shut Down Modigliani Show Containing 21 Forgeries
“Earlier this week, the foundation sponsoring the Genoa show decided to shut down exhibit three days early in order to collaborate with latest investigation enveloping the Italian expressionist painter and sculptor, who is one of the world’s most famously faked artists.”
A.R.T. And Harvard Stop All Admissions To Graduate Theatre Program For Three Years
“The program, known as the A.R.T. Institute, is housed within Harvard’s acclaimed American Repertory Theater, and has had several recent setbacks that contributed to the freeze. In January, the federal government called out the institute for burdening its students with loan debt averaging about $78,000 each.” This for a program that does not confer an MFA degree.