“Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has made a name for himself writing plays including Neighbors and An Octoroon. This year he won the Wyndham-Campbell Literature award, one of the biggest financial prizes for writers. But a seeming windfall only goes so far. As he puts it, ‘Can anyone really say they’ve made it in New York? … It feels like New York is a game about keeping up. You can’t get too comfortable in any avenue here.” (audio)
Author: Matthew Westphal
Spelling In English Is A Ridiculous Mess, And We Need To Reform It
“Etymologist and poet Anatoly Liberman, author of Word Origins and How We Know Them, says English is one of the most difficult languages to spell. But we can change that.” (podcast)
Brutalism Is Beautiful, Man!
“I love Brutalism, and am increasingly clear that it is not merely the equal of any other period’s architecture, it is better. There has never been a more remarkable period of architectural achievement.” Barnabas Calder makes the case.
Netflix Has Created A Whole New Media World – Can It Survive In It?
Joe Nocera: “At the moment, Netflix has a negative cash flow of almost $1 billion; it regularly needs to go to the debt market to replenish its coffers. … And for all the original shows Netflix has underwritten, it remains dependent on the very networks that fear its potential to destroy their longtime business model in the way that internet competitors undermined the newspaper and music industries. Now that so many entertainment companies see it as an existential threat, the question is whether Netflix can continue to thrive in the new TV universe that it has brought into being.”
The Hollywood Blockbusters That Are Making Their Millions In China And Not The U.S.
Warcraft: The Beginning made only $24.4 million on its opening in the States – but more than six times that in China, “a record-breaking five-day total of $156m, the highest ever debut for a foreign release.” And that’s just one example.
Exodus From Pennsylvania Ballet Continues As Company’s School Director Resigns
“Arantxa Ochoa, the director of the School of Pennsylvania Ballet, is the latest to announce that she is leaving the ballet. Hers has been one of the most-recognizable faces of the company for the last 20 years, and her departure … is an exclamation point on a tumultuous year.”
‘Swan Lake’ And Those Damned 32 Fouettés
“The 32 fouettés aren’t the hardest assignment in ballet, but they’re the most exposed example of virtuoso technique. If something goes wrong, the audience will see. I remember one ballerina falling flat on her backside around turn No. 14 and several who stopped (or switched to another step) after about 20. There used to be great ballerinas who avoided them: Anna Pavlova, Alexandra Danilova, Alicia Markova, Maya Plisetskaya did alternative steps.”
The Liverpool Shipyard Worker Who Became A Great Wagner Tenor: Alberto Remedios Dead At 81
“He made his name in Reginald Goodall’s highly acclaimed Ring Cycle with English National Opera in the late 1960s and went on to work with many of the leading singers of the day, including Joan Sutherland, Luciano Pavarotti and Montserrat Caballé. It was a remarkable journey, comparable in many ways with Jon Vickers’s transformation from Canadian lumberjack to acclaimed Heldentenor.”
Is This Relic From A Shipwreck A 2,100-Year-Old Computer?
“Item 15087 wasn’t much to look at, particularly compared to other wonders uncovered from the shipwreck at Antikythera, Greece, in 1901. … Who could have guessed that a shoebox-size mangled bronze machine, its inscriptions barely legible, its gears calcified and corroded, would be the discovery that could captivate scientists for more than a century?” (includes video)
Shortest Orchestra Strike In History Started And Ended While We Weren’t Looking
“Less than three hours after the Grant Park Music Festival cancelled Wednesday’s opening concert, a tentative agreement has been reached between the festival and musicians. Tomorrow night’s season-opening program will take place as scheduled, with Carlos Kalmar leading the Grant Park Orchestra in music of Barber, Poulenc, and Mussorgsky.”