“While there’s much to process from his past, Wilson is living in the present, touring with a band for the 50th anniversary of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. … We reached him in Portland, Ore., as he prepared for a sound check. He seemed courteous, but wary: a man who prefers to express himself in song.” (audio)
Author: Matthew Westphal
Netflix Says It Will Spend $6 Billion On Content
“Netflix is promising two big highlights for 2016 [sic]. For viewers, there’ll be 1,000 hours of original new shows, part of a planned $6 billion in spending on content. And for investors there’ll be serious profits for the first time in the company’s history.”
Dance’s Bessie Awards Finally Include (A Little) Money
“The hard work of dancing is too often undernoticed and underpaid. Enter the New York Dance and Performance Awards, better known as the Bessies, which bestow some much needed recognition and a touch of glamour on the profession once a year, if not a whole lot of money – though this year’s ceremony, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Tuesday, began with an announcement that all nominees would receive a $500 honorarium. (It’s a start?)”
An Exotic Dancer Tells How Work Has Changed In The Internet Era
“A lot of people don’t come out for the companionship anymore. They can get it in other ways for much cheaper. Why go to a strip club just to live out the fantasy, when you can pay $100 dollars for somebody to sleep with you for the evening and actually get the fantasy come to you? … We don’t really get a lot of people who are paying customers anymore. We get a lot of people who are looking for girlfriends.”
Lincoln Center President Who Suddenly Resigned Last Spring Turns Up In Hippest Brooklyn
“Jed Bernstein, whose tenure as the president of Lincoln Center was cut short … after he failed to disclose a relationship with an employee, is crossing the river for his next post: He is now an adviser at National Sawdust, the new-music space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.”
Nasty War Over Three Little Words At Broadway Musical Based On ‘War And Peace’
“Five years ago, the small nonprofit theater company Ars Nova commissioned an up-and-coming composer to write his wacky dream project” – Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812. “In a stunning and abrupt severing of an unusually close partnership, the nonprofit and the show’s commercial producers … are suddenly in a bitter battle” over three words in the show’s Playbill.
‘I Was Having Conversations With Myself’ – Soprano Sings Two Roles In Same Performance Of ‘Traviata’
“Less than six hours before the curtain was to rise for the final performance of Pittsburgh Opera’s production of La traviata, the lead singer, Danielle Pastin, was sick, and it was unclear whether she would be able to perform. Was [Claudia] Rosenthal – the understudy who had been playing the small role of Annina – prepared to play Violetta instead? … Oh, and by the way, she would still have to sing Annina’s part, too.”
Nude Hillary Clinton Statue (It Had To Happen Eventually) Appears Briefly In New York
Two months after guerrilla artists put up nude statues of Donald Trump in five US cities, “the grotesque caricature of the Democratic candidate appeared outside the Bowling Green station during morning rush hour on Tuesday [showing] Clinton with hoofed feet and a Wall Street banker resting his head on her bare breasts. The statue was up for less than three hours before an enraged woman toppled it over and started yelling at the statue’s creator.” (includes video)
Yoko Ono’s First Public Artwork In The U.S. Unveiled In Chicago
The installation, titled Sky Landing, is in Jackson Park, which will also be the site of the Obama Presidential Library. “[It] consists of 12 steel lotus petals and mounds that form the yin yang symbol to symbolize peace.”
Arts And Culture Make Cities Safer And Stronger, Says UNESCO Report
“According to the report’s findings, the best measure to prevent such negative effects” of rapid urbanization as social inequality, lack of parks and public spaces, the growth of slums, and even violence “is to fully integrate cultural components into urban strategies from the start.”