Leading Change
“How can we do it better and should we even be doing it in the first place?” Does your organization look the same as it did five years ago? What about your creative practice? … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2016-03-09
Sharing is Caring.
People tend to talk more frequently about their successes, rather than their failures. This is natural, but it can make you feel awfully small when you think you’re the only one in … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2016-03-09
When You Might Want to Worry
It’s day four of our journey in the land of failure. To date, the news has been fairly positive, if not supportive. It has focused on the celebration, the motivation. … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2016-03-09
Selfies in the museum, Victorian edition
Pacific Standard reports that “Surprised museum researchers find many visitors snap photographs of themselves with the masterpieces.” I’m not sure which researchers are actually surprised by this. But by coincidence I am now reading … read more
AJBlog: For What it’s Worth Published 2016-03-09
Orange Mound
Last year ArtsMemphis invited me to speak and do a little consulting work. In the process I learned about their Community Engagement Fellows program and that program’s focus on the Orange Mound neighborhood in Memphis. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-03-08
Juggling with monotheism – Akhnaten makes a spectacle of himself
For all the thunder that surrounds his productions, Philip Glass is undersung and underpraised. His superb memoir, Words without Music, recounts how he entered the University of Chicago, … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2016-03-09
Do we connect?
There’s something I miss at classical new music concerts, even if I like the music I’m hearing. So yes, many of us in the classical biz think new music is important, crucial to support, … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-03-09
Ornette Day, bits of wisdom with video clips
Ornette Coleman’s birthday is today, and his son Denardo has invited everyone to a walk with him from noon to three in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, where his father, the prophet of Harmolodics, is interred … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2016-03-09
Dvorak on the Reservation
Sisseton, in the northeastern corner of South Dakota, sits within a Dakota Indian reservation called Sisseton Wahpeton. The population – 2,500 – is half Native American, half non-Native. Last Monday … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered Question Published 2016-03-09
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Author: Matthew Westphal
If It’s Not Difficult, Brian Dennehy Won’t Do It
“I’m only interested in doing stuff that’s hard to do, that’s challenging, and as a result pays off or blows up in your face.”
The Internet Of The Dead
“When websites such as the Wayback Machine archive websites for posterity and social media accounts linger on after our deaths, a new digital afterlife has been created, one that we can’t necessarily control.”
Allen Ginsburg’s Uncollected Gems
“There were hundreds of poems composed and never collected, poems spanning the broad range of his life and career. Ginsberg loved gathering his works together. He kept copies of his essays, his interviews, his music, and his speeches and organized them in large file cabinets in his office.”
How Botticelli Went From An Artist To A Style To A Meme
“Successive generations of artists, designers and taste-makers have found that they too could repurpose Botticelli for their own ends without – and this is important and hard to explain – ever making him look trivial or banal.”
Mikhail Baryshnikov On Putting His Friendship With Joseph Brodsky Onstage
“I almost never directly connect to the audience. It is like someone reciting poetry for his own enjoyment, like people sing in the shower. I’m trying to remember his voice, his mannerisms. Sometimes I imitate him. And suddenly the tape starts with Joseph’s own voice. His presence is what those poems are about.”
Anxiety And El Greco: Garth Greenwell On How He Finished ‘What Belongs To You’
“I wasn’t sure I could make it better, and as we inched our way forward I felt I was losing my ability to make my own judgments, or my ability to see the manuscript at all. As I worked through each page I laid it face down, using the overleaf for rewrites, adding scraps and post-its as necessary.”
What It Feels Like To Read When You’re Dyslexic
“The letters constantly flicker around, and everything seems jumbled. The words seem to make sense at first and then they don’t, and just when you think you’ve figured out the word, it seems to morph into a totally different one.”
When Hollywood Was New, Women Ruled
“In fact, there were more women working in Hollywood in its first two decades than there are now, or have been at any time since. If Hollywood is ever to achieve gender parity in its studios and boardrooms, it should look back to its beginnings.”
When You’re Watching A Play And It Suddenly Name-Checks Your Book
“On opening night in January, I almost jumped out of my seat. I’m no math whiz, but I could project potential book sales: 650 seats in the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, eight performances weekly, six weeks before completing its limited run. … My wife immediately nudged me back to earth.”