“I’ve always believed that, to remain open to the surprises and contingencies offered by literature, you have to value ignorance more than self-confidence. … The prisoners, however, see my openness as wishy-washy. If this is what you get from literature, they tell me, maybe it’s better to leave it alone. Who wants to be uncertain and indecisive? At least they know where they stand. That may very well be true, I reply, but look where it’s got you.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Backstage Drama Bursts Into Public View At Legendary Berlin Theatre
“On Monday, 180 directors, actors and stage designers associated with the Volksbühne published an open letter in which they expressed ‘deep concerns’ about plans for the future of the legendary avant garde theatre, which is due to be headed by Tate Modern’s outgoing director Chris Dercon from early 2017. ‘This is not a friendly takeover,’ they write.”
Hollywood’s Original ‘It’ Girl (And How Hollywood Froze Her Out)
“As fellow actor Lina Basquette said: ‘She wasn’t well liked amongst other women in the film colony. Her social presence was taboo, and it was rather silly, because God knows Marion Davies and Mary Pickford had plenty to hide. It’s just that they hid it, and Clara didn’t.'”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 06.27.16
Monday Recommendation: Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker, Unheard Bird: The Unissued Takes (Verve) Charlie Parker has never disappeared from the consciousness of serious jazz listeners. This two-CD collection, due out on Friday, could go a long way toward helping new generations discover the stunning purity and power of Parker’s creativity. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-06-27
True confession
Max Beerbohm’s The Happy Hypocrite: A Fairy Tale for Tired Men, written in 1897, is an Oscar Wilde-like fable whose protagonist, Lord George Hell, is a “greedy, destructive, and disobedient” Regency rake whose face bears the marks of his dissolution. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-06-27
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What Paved The Way For Modern Secularism? 16th-Century How-To Books
“There was a good reason why technical manuals were so often titled ‘books of secrets’. Not only did they reveal closely guarded trade practices, they assumed a world in which there no longer are ‘secrets’ in the sense of mysterious hidden forces in nature.”
How Did Voltaire Get Rich? By Rigging The Lottery, Repeatedly
“It was once said of Voltaire, by his friend the Marquis d’Argenson, that ‘our great poet forever has one foot on Mount Parnassus and the other in the rue Quincampoix. The rue Quincampoix was the Wall Street of eighteenth-century Paris … By the time d’Argenson made his remark, in 1751, Voltaire had amassed a fortune. He owed it all to a lottery win. Or, to be more precise, to several wins.”
Think Gender Is (Even Partly) Performance? Here’s The Woman Who Launched The Idea
“Here’s Teen Vogue on another photo of Jaden Smith in a skirt suit: ‘The midi skirt set sends up a poignant rejection of heteronormativity.’ What sage could have predicted that heteronormativity would eventually make its way into the vocabulary of teen magazines and shareable web content? Only, perhaps, the queer theorist Judith Butler.”
Julie Taymor Gives Three Young Directors $30K Fellowships To Study Non-Western Theater
“Julie Taymor has announced the three recipients of the inaugural World Theater Fellowship, a prize for young theatre directors to travel for one year to Central/South America, Africa, Asia, or the Middle East. The winners are Zachary Dorn, Hector Flores Komatsu, and Jesca Prudencio.”
Led Zeppelin Did Not Steal Chords In ‘Stairway To Heaven,’ Rules Jury – What Will This Mean?
Scott Timberg: “At times, it looked like it was going to bend the other way. But a Los Angeles federal jury has decided unanimously that Led Zeppelin did not break copyright law in the composition of its song ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ … So what’s likely to be the effect of the judgment? This is probably a case where a process that seems to be accelerating will halt for a little while.”
Alessandra Ferri, Still Dancing (A Lot) At 53, Maintains She’s Retired
“When I retired, it was the end of my career, and that’s still true. My career is over. I have gone back to the pure joy of what I feel when I dance.”