Sarah Kaufman writes about “a new video ad pokes fun at the city’s colorless rep and shows the limbering-up effects of a little retail therapy.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Lincoln Center Denies Seat To Woman Wearing Anti-Trump Sign
The message at issue: “NO! In the name of humanity we refuse to accept a fascist America.”
Cult Japanese Filmmaker Seijun Suzuki Dead At 93
During the 1960s, his job was to churn out B-movies for the Nikkatsu studio; he livened them up with elaborate, sometimes surreal pop-art scenery and costumes (with performances to match). What’s now his most famous movie initially got him fired from the studio.
Philadelphia Theatre Company Gets A New Chief (And New Hope)
It’s been a tough few years for the flagship of Philly’s nonprofit theaters: PTC nearly collapsed in 2014 and its new-ish home was foreclosed on the following year. Fortunately, the new producing artistic director, Paige Price, has already turned around Theatre Aspen, where she was performing as an actor in 2007 when suddenly found herself the boss. As David Patrick Stearns reports, “her Philadelphia appointment … means giving up spectacular Rocky Mountain scenery but having a near year-round, locally-based audience and a theater with running water.”
Why Salon Should Not Have Deleted A Genuinely Valuable Article About Pedophilia (Milo Or No Milo)
The already-notorious Milo Yiannopoulos lost his book contract and biggest speaking gig this week after video surfaced of him arguing in favor of sex between men and 13-year-old boys. Now Salon has taken down a controversial article in which a man who has an attraction to children explains how he keeps himself from acting on it. Jesse Singal makes a case that Salon‘s decision was wrongheaded.
Which Canonical Books Are Routinely Misread And Misinterpreted?
Rivka Galchen writes about how she, like many, misunderstood Don Quixote when she first read it. Benjamin Moser argues that the answer to the question has to be the Bible. (Too easy?)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 02.22.17
The “Leveraging Effect”: Why Small Grants from the Endangered NEA & NEH Matter
Arts and humanities constituents rose to the challenge of meeting Monday’s deadline to gather more that 100,000 signatures on a petition to the White House calling for the federal government “to support the arts by … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-02-22
Back When Everyone Believed in the NEA and the Creative Life
As the National Endowment for the Arts once again finds itself a punching bag on the chopping block (summon that mixed-metaphor image), it seems like a good time to take a step back and reflect … read more
AJBlog: New Beans Published 2017-02-22
Many Miles To Go To See Art
I don’t know all that many people, aside from curators doing research and wealthy collectors, who hop on a plane a fly overseas mainly to see an art exhibition. But that is what has been … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-02-22
Dance in L.A. Museums Unleashes the Spirits
If you haven’t seen dance at a museum lately, some good news. Gone are the days when dancers were brought in like bulky decor to inhabit dead gallery space. Synchronicity abounds, tickets are still low-cost … read more
AJBlog: Fresh Pencil Published 2017-02-22
Juggling Ideas About the Avant Garde
So much art is called “avant garde” these days that my tireless staff of thousands wonders whether it’s just a label. Some think that the entire culture, no matter how far out, has gone mainstream … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2017-02-22
A Brief History Of Yorick’s Skull
“No other piece of stage business has burned itself so deeply into the collective consciousness. All the greats have been there, from Richard Burbage to Thomas Betterton, Sarah Bernhardt to Laurence Olivier. Even Bart Simpson has got in on the act. Given all this, it’s worth reflecting on the fact that, for Hamlet‘s earliest audiences, seeing real human remains on stage would have been a shock.”
Has ‘Interesting’ Has Become A Meaningless Concept?
Simon L. Garfinkel: Calling something interesting is the height of sloppy thinking. Interesting is not descriptive, not objective, and not even meaningful. … Interesting is a kind of linguistic connective tissue. When introducing an idea, it’s easier to say ‘interesting’ than to think of an introduction that’s simultaneously descriptive but not a spoiler. … In practice, interesting is a synonym for entertaining.”
How The Chelsea Manning-WikiLeaks Opera Changes (And Doesn’t) With The Current Political Situation
Ted Hearne’s The Source premiered in Brooklyn in 2014, when Manning had been eclipsed by Edward Snowden; it played in Los Angeles just before the election; it’s now, early in the Trump era, about to open in San Francisco. Hearne talks with Zachary Woolfe about the piece’s content and context, then and now.