“Actor Al Pacino, musician James Taylor, gospel and blues singer Mavis Staples, Argentine pianist Martha Argerich and rockers the Eagles will receive the 2016 Kennedy Center Honors, the arts center announced Thursday.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Top Posts From AJBlogs 06.23.16
Welcome
Think of a time that you didn’t feel welcome. As a woman who is the soon-to-be-wife of a woman who prefers buttons and a collar over scoop necks and pencil skirts, the inevitable wedding suit shopping experience loomed in my future. … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2016-06-23
Other Places: Linda Oh In The Village Voice
In the new issue of The Village Voice, Michael J. Agovino wraps three years of observing the bassist Linda Oh into a 4,000-word article about what it takes these days for a leading musician to practice the profession in the world’s jazz capital. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-06-23
So you want to see a show?
Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-06-23
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Hollywood’s Sequels Barely Even Bother With The Story, They’re About Milking The Brand
“Sequels have always been a financially driven proposition, and it’s not a revelation that some of them are churned out like sausage … But for the 15 years or so of the post-Star Wars blockbuster era, the bottom-line pragmatism behind sequels did not erase another priority: narrative.” But that was then: “This summer’s sequels are not, for the most part, story continuations but brand extensions.”
What Hollywood Can Learn About Disability From ‘Finding Dory’
Alyssa Rosenberg: “Part of what’s great about a movie like Finding Dory is that there are so many characters with disabilities in it that no single character has to carry the weight of an entire community, or act as an exemplar for it.” And the expectations for the disabled characters aren’t low: “Dory and Nemo have wild, ocean-spanning, out-of-water adventures that most fish never dream of.”
Police In Spain Seize 10,000 Stolen Artworks And Antiquities
The Guardia Civil has arrested an antiques collector in the town of Bullas and impounded an enormous cache: 4,000 archaeological artifacts, some dating to the Bronze Age; 5,000 rare coins; 150 relics, included a supposed piece of the True Cross once certified by the Vatican; 40 paintings; and 30 manuscripts, including a late medieval Book of Psalms.
Adapting ‘The Lion King’ For China
“On Broadway, Timon and Pumbaa have entertained audiences for years with their Brooklyn accents. But in China, the famous meerkat-warthog duo not only speak Chinese, but they also do so with a distinct beifang, or northern, twang.”
William The Conqueror And Winston Churchill, Singin’ And Dancin’ Through British History
City of London financier Johathan Ruffer “is the main backer of something called Kynren, an all-singing, all-dancing history of Britain from the Romans to the second world war, which will be put on by about 1,000 volunteers in the investor’s rolling backyard” near Durham. “Billed as the biggest live event in the UK since the 2012 Olympics, it features a Viking longboat levitating out of a lake, horses charging into battle, a volley of flaming arrows and and plenty of pyrotechnics.”
What’s Truly *New* About The Internet
Virginia Heffernan: “Speed and expansiveness, to start. On expanse: The population of our ether – users of cell tech and wifi – is now just about coextensive with the population of the earth. This is fathomless by most minds. And speed: The illusion of near-absolute compression of time and space on the Internet is an illusion so beguiling we are virtually powerless to refuse it as real, except for short periods and with great mental or spiritual focus.”
Think You’ll Enjoy Some Schadenfreude If Barnes And Noble Closes? Don’t – It’ll Be A Calamity
“There’s more than a little irony to the impending collapse of Barnes & Noble. The mega-retailer that drove many small, independent booksellers out of business is now being done in by the rise of Amazon. But while many book lovers may be tempted to gloat, the death of Barnes & Noble would be catastrophic – not just for publishing houses and the writers they publish, but for American culture as a whole.”
Janet Malcolm Takes Down The Current Stars Of Russian Literary Translation
“A sort of asteroid has hit the safe world of Russian literature in English translation. A couple named Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have established an industry of taking everything they can get their hands on written in Russian and putting it into flat, awkward English.” (includes side-by-side excerpts from Anna Karenina in P&V’s translation and Constance Garnett’s)