A longread with photos about the conservators and craftsmen preserving traditional gypsum glass work at the Muslim holy site
Author: Matthew Westphal
Top Posts From AJBlogs 02.02.17
Resilience: The Spirit of 9/12
We remember the fear and uncertainty of 9/11. … But what do we remember of 9/12? What do we remember of the long and arduous process that commenced the next day – the effort to restore calm, order and clarity? How long did it take to achieve strategic thinking?… read more
AJBlog: Audience Wanted Published 2017-02-02
Classical music — the definition
My students – in my Juilliard course on classical music’s future – came up with a definition that I think works. … It’s in two parts. … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2017-02-02
More On That Revolutionary Art: Unscrolled
As I mentioned yesterday, the soon-to-open Museum of the American Revolution will hang a copy of Louis Charles-Auguste Couder’s Siege of Yorktown (1781). It hangs in the Hall of the Battles at Versailles. The copy, I’ve now learned, … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-02-01
The Conflation Index
When faced with stress or dramatic change in our environment, we humans have a tendency to conflate things in our thinking — to bundle two or more separate ideas or issues or observations into one. … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2017-02-01
‘Lady Wedges’ – The Forgotten Women Whose Heads Used To Be On Every Roll Of Movie Film
They were known by several names – leader ladies, girl heads, China girls, lady wedges – and they weren’t meant to be seen by audiences. They were used for a sort of quality control.
Pakistan Lifts Its Ban On Indian Films
“The ban was introduced in September 2016, as a response to the escalation of cross-border tensions between Pakistan and India over the disputed territory of Kashmir. … Indian films account for around 70% of Pakistan’s box office, something the Ministry of Information statement seemed to acknowledge, saying that lifting the ban would help the ‘revival of the Pakistani film industry’.”
Why Our Culture Seems So Drawn To Apocalypses And Dystopias
Jessa Crispin: “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Certainly it’s more fun. Our imaginations are so overpowered and outmaneuvered by the toxic gravity of the global economy that we are happy to amuse ourselves watching the whole world burn instead of doing anything to keep that from happening.”
The Singer Who Topped Charts By Embracing His Stutter
“Before his massive international hit ‘Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop),’ before selling millions of records globally in a style of music that hadn’t been popular in generations, and before he entered the National Stuttering Association’s hall of fame, Scatman John was just a kid in suburbia, … developing a stutter early in life that made communicating with others very difficult – and got him bullied.”
‘Rococo And Flemish Influences’ – An Art Critic Has A Go At Beyoncé’s Pregnancy Pic
Anna Furman: “An appealing remix of rococo excesses, Flemish portraiture and Latin American funerary symbols.”
Now Even GQ Wants You To Follow Jerry Saltz
And not only for the oversexed Instagram feed. “Jerry Saltz is the anti-critic critic, making critic-art out of the whole cloth of himself. Saltz is human Xanax; always ‘on’, he’s forever cheerful, an antidote to life’s chores and routines, maybe shying from his family history of despondency. I can’t remember ever seeing him grumpy or imagine him out of character.”
Getting Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto Back To What Tchaikovsky Really Wrote
“What we commonly hear is an overly ostentatious misrepresentation, tarted up after Tchaikovsky’s death” by a former student who had also studied with Liszt. Pianist Kirill Gerstein has gone back to the composer’s own conducting score and other sources to create a cleaner edition. “It’s still very much the Tchaikovsky concerto we love,” Gerstein says, “but it perhaps has a different facial expression than we are used to.” (includes sound clips)
What Philip Glass Learned In Paris
“As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us in this Fishko Files, Glass’s time away from America in the ’60s was central to his music, as he encountered a pair of powerful influences.” (audio)