“[A Federal judge] refused to overturn an arbitrator’s decision that upheld the July 2012 firing of Pierre Roy, who had been the orchestra’s principal oboist for more than 15 years.” Roy had been fired from the BPO once before, in 2010.
Author: Matthew Westphal
New York’s Next Big Battle Over What Deserves To Be A Landmark
“The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is about to decide the fate of 95 properties that have been languishing, some of them for decades, on its calendar.” Michael Kimmelman looks at the issues involved – and at some of the buildings he’d like to see saved.
They Read It For The Articles: Playboy’s First Nudity-Free Issue, Reviewed
“Playboy doing away with naked women … might sound like Vogue doing away with fashion, or Cat Fancy doing away with cats, or, frankly, Vanity Fair doing away with movie stars and badly behaving rich people. … Now that the ‘the articles’ are, indeed, the only reason to read Playboy, the question is raised: Are they, in fact, any good?”
Met To Present First Opera By A Woman In 113 Years – And It’ll Be Conducted By A Woman
The first and only time before now the Metropolitan Opera has produced an opera by a female composer was in 1903 (Ethel Smyth’s Der Wald).
Performance Artist Who Nailed Scrotum To Red Square Dropped From Russia’s Top Art Prize
Pyotr Pavlensky wasn’t nominated for that particular piece, his most notorious. He was in the running for the Innovation Prize for last November’s Threat: Lubyanka’s Burning Door, in which he did exactly that to the headquarters of the FSB (the successor to the KGB). (The Innovation Prize is government-sponsored.)
The Weird Plagiarism Lawsuit Between Two Giants Of Young Adult Fantasy
“At issue, to the puzzlement of many observers, isn’t word-for-word plagiarism, but what looks like [Sherrilyn] Kenyon’s attempt to claim ownership of some of the most archetypal themes in popular culture… And egging Kenyon on is a legion of implacable Cassandra Clare detractors who have had it in for the YA phenom since her apprenticeship years in the notoriously toxic subculture of Harry Potter fandom.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 02.17.16
Aesthetic attention
Arts organizations are in the business of aesthetic experience. I hope this isn’t a radical statement, but an obvious point. Whether the organization is fostering work by artists, connecting that work to audiences, or preserving … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2016-02-17
Black History Week (2) — Black Classical Musicians in Philadelphia
Here’s an indispensable book — Black Classical Musicians in Philadelphia: Oral Histories Covering Four Generations, by Elaine Mack. It brings to life what once was a thriving community of classical musicians in the Philadelphia black … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-02-17
The Met’s New Logo
It’s a disaster, as I predicted here last June in “The Met’s Coming Rebranding: A Puzzlement.” In fact, it’s worst than I had heard. Justin Davidson posted this image on New York magazine’s Vulture site… … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-02-17
Buried Child Surfaces in New Revival
Sam Shepard recently referred to Buried Child as “the same clunky play” it always was, rewrites notwithstanding. That’s Shepard being candid. That’s Shepard being Shepard. Never mind that awkward dramaturgy and a little too much… … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2016-02-17
Vigée Le Brun: Flattery Got Her Everywhere, Including the Met (with video)
At about the halfway point in the 80-work Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum (to May 15), I ran into the museum’s new president, Daniel Weiss, who asked me the dreaded … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-02-17
Portland Bound
Shortly, I am going to head south, turn right, drive west through the Columbia River Gorge – shown above – and spend the next few days in one of my favorite former hometowns at the Portland Jazz Festival … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-02-17
Fire and Ice Mate – Can That End Well?
The Kathryn Posin Dance Company performs at 92Y. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2016-02-17
Nelson Algren’s Walk Through Appalachia
I have always loved the way A Walk on the Wild Side begins. Show me a more perceptive opening of an American novel with its historical tracing of an Appalachian clan … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2016-02-17
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Two Sisters, One Murder, 500 Folk Songs
“The Twa Sisters,” a ballad about deadly sibling rivalry that was first notated and catalogued in Scotland in 1806; it turns out to have at least 531 variants (with several different denouements) spread throughout Europe and over much of the rest of the world.
‘Billionaires, Bombers, And Belly Dancers’: The Long History Of Arab Characters In Western Movies
Arwa Haider goes back to the beginning – Rudolph Valentino’s Sheik and vamp Theda Bara (whose name is an anagram of ‘Arab death’) – through Back to the Future and Indiana Jones to today’s (inconsistent) improvements, especially from Arab-descended Westerners.
Where Physics Crossed Into Metaphysics (Was Einstein Wrong?)
Astrophysicist Adam Frank looks at a famous debate between Albert Einstein and philosopher Henri Bergson in which Einstein declared, “The time of the philosophers does not exist.”