Attention Deficit Disorder: Our Walled-Garden Problem
As the digital world pummels us with more information and choice, many of us react by walling off the things we simply won’t pay attention to. It’s a survival strategy. … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-08-01
Evanescent Permanent Collections: Warhol Museum’s & Fisk University’s Stealth Deaccessions
Recent revelations of secret disposals of artworks held in public trust by a museum (the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh) and a university (Fisk in Nashville) suggest that the AAMD and the AAM need to offer periodic refresher courses on professional ethics regarding deaccessions. …read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-08-01
Die Kunst der Gadgets
A few weeks ago, I wrote about my Ten Wind Gadgets, a set of trios for every possible combination of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon, all based on a single motif. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the question of why I would embark on such a project, … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2016-08-01
Just because: NBC Opera’s 1952 production of Billy Budd
A very rare kinescope of the NBC Opera telecast of scenes from Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd, originally telecast on October 19, 1952. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-08-01
[ssba_hide]
Author: Matthew Westphal
The ‘Zines Of Renaissance England
“From the 15th century onward, everyday English people passed broadsides around, sang their songs, and gossiped about the news contained within. Unlike books or early newspapers, broadsides and pamphlets were not curated nor intended for a specific, upper-class audience. This early form of journalism and storytelling was sold on the cheap, and many took no time at all to read.”
Stunning Chronophotographs Capture the Patterns of Birds in Flight
“For the past five years, the Barcelona-based photographer [Xavi Bou] has captured different bird species soaring around the Catalonia region to form his ongoing Ornitographies series, using a particular method he has honed to compress multiple seconds into a single frame.”
Whoa – When Did Howard Stern Turn Into Terry Gross?
“Since settling in to his new home on satellite radio, which he did in 2006, Mr. Stern and his show have gradually taken on an improbable new dimension. Scattered among the gleefully vulgar mainstays are now long, starkly intimate live exchanges – character excavations that have made Mr. Stern one of the most deft and engrossing celebrity interviewers in the business.”
How Mexico’s Great Architect Got Turned Into A Diamond
An American conceptual artist got the family of Luis Barragán to give her his ashes, which she had carbonized into a 2.2-carat diamond – all as part of a gambit to free up access to Barragán’s all-too-closely-held archives in Switzerland.
A Play About Critics Moves A Critic To Ponder Her Younger, Less-Compassionate Self
Laura Collins-Hughes, reflecting on Brenda Withers’s new play The Kritik: “I did what so many young critics do. In love with the sound of my own voice, unaware of how lastingly harmful meanness could be, I was sometimes far harsher than I should have been.”
Famous Armada Portrait Of Elizabeth I Will Stay In Britain Following Fundraising Appeal
“A grant of £7.4m from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), using money from national lottery players, was the final piece in a campaign to raise £10.3m to buy the work … showing an elegant and triumphant Elizabeth I after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, … from descendants of [original owner] Sir Francis Drake.”
Why Is Whether Or Not Athletes Dope So Important To People?
Consider the anger at Lance Armstrong once the truth came out. Consider all the time and money spent on catching and eliminating athletes who dope. “If technology can help sports officials perform their jobs more efficiently and fairly, why can it not be used to help athletes do their jobs more effectively? The answer is quite simple: Athletes have to be human.”
The Latest Trend In LGBT Fiction: Gay Shame
“Shame informs much of the work of our latter-day gay novelists, offered as an antidote to our overriding gay culture that recognizes ‘pride’ as the core (and perhaps only) important expression of gayness today. The literary projects offered by [Hanya] Yanagihara and [Garth] Greenwell are cultural counterpoints to gay pride, attempts to show how shame – just as much as pride, if not more – still meaningfully forms part of the terrain of gay life, and must be acknowledged as such.”
After #CastSoWhite Controversy, Concert Reading Of New ‘Prince Of Egypt’ Musical Cancelled
A day after news media picked up on social media criticism that only five of 15 cast members for a first concert reading of the work-in-progress, a stage adaptation of the hit 1998 animated film about Moses, were nonwhite, Dreamworks and the producing theater called off the event with no explanation.