Author: Matthew Westphal

The Problem With ‘Frankenstein’ And The Warnings Against ‘Playing God’

“Secular and religious, critic and journalist alike have summoned the term to deride and outright dismiss entire areas of research and technology, including stem cells, genetically modified crops, recombinant DNA, geoengineering, and gene editing. … To urge against playing God … is to convey a mistrust of scientists – and to criticize their arrogance in the face of the power and unpredictability of nature.”

Zora Neale Hurston, Anthropologist Of Voodoo

When she was pursuing a Ph.D. at Columbia, she got a Guggenheim Fellowship to study obeah in Jamaica and (later) vodou in Haiti. Her goal was to write what she called “the proper voodoo book,” raising the understanding of Afro-Caribbean religion beyond the “black magic” and “devil worship” (her words) caricatures prevalent in the 1930s.

Martha Swope, Dance And Theatre Photographer, Dead At 88

“From 1957, when Ms. Swope was invited by Jerome Robbins to shoot rehearsals of West Side Story, to 1994, when she shut down her Times Square studio and sold her archive, Ms. Swope produced hundreds of thousands of images of performers in action, capturing Gelsey Kirkland and Mikhail Baryshnikov in full flight, the cast of La Cage Aux Folles in full drag and John Travolta in full Saturday night fever.”

The Strange Story Of David Bowie’s Unfinished Broadway Musical (Told By The Pulitzer Winner Bowie Asked To Write The Book)

“When novelist Michael Cunningham got a call from someone claiming to be David Bowie, he thought it was a friend pulling a prank. He didn’t know he was about to be launched into a yearlong collaboration on a musical involving space aliens, mariachi bands, and an imaginary trove of unreleased songs by Bob Dylan.”

These Texas Standardized Test Questions About My Poems Are So Bad Even I Can’t Answer Them, Says Writer

Sara Holbrook: “These test questions were just made up, and tragically, incomprehensibly, kids’ futures and the evaluations of their teachers will be based on their ability to guess the so-called correct answer to made up questions. … Stop it. Just stop it.” (includes test questions, plus annotations)

‘Ballet Remains A Sexist View Of The World’ – Alastair Macaulay On The Form’s Gender Roles In The 21st Century

“[That view is] one that privileges the woman, certainly, but on terms that let her shine only by doing what no man can. Should we agree with the choreographer George Balanchine (1904-83) that ‘ballet is woman’? Or do we qualify this, as the choreographer Pam Tanowitz (born in 1969) has recently done, by saying that ballet is a man’s idea of woman?”

Plan For New Concert Hall For London Brought Back From The Dead

“The scheme, costed at £278m, appeared derailed in November when the [national] government unexpectedly announced it was withdrawing money it had pledged for a detailed business case to be made. On Thursday the City [of London] said it would provide the money, up to £2.5m, needed to complete it.” The move comes just as Hamburg has opened its new concert hall to ecstatic reviews.

Hamburg’s Spectacular New Concert Hall Sounds As Good As It Looks

Rick Fulker: “From my vantage point, the stage was far below, but despite the distance from the source of the music, I had the sensation of sitting amidst it. … [The program] spanned five centuries of Occidental art music, and the interior space played along. Soloists and small ensembles sometimes performed from the upper balconies, but whether five or fifty meters away, they sounded equally vivid as the orchestra down there onstage.”