“[Research findings] suggest that a second language, spoken in scent, might be passing (as it were) right under our noses. Body odours are in the background of all our interactions. And the clues about relationships and emotions that we sniff out from these odours might be a crucial element of human society.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Philip Pullman Quits Oxford Literary Festival Because Guest Authors Don’t Get Paid
“The best-selling author of the His Dark Materials trilogy said he had ‘had enough’ of writers being expected to work for nothing. He announced his decision on Twitter and revealed he had long tried to persuade the Oxford festival to change its policy ‘but they won’t. Time to go.'”
Philly’s Society Hill Playhouse To Shut Down
Over 55 years, “the theater has sought to balance the appeal of public theater with a steady schedule of premieres. So while plays like Nunsense and Lafferty’s Wake ran for years there, the theater also put on works by modern masters such as Jean Paul Sarte, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter, and Bertolt Brecht.”
Making the Most of Stakeholder Revolt: The Recapturing of San Diego Opera and Sweet Briar College
The two cases turn out to be quite similar: shutdowns announced seemingly out of the blue and with little consultation; institutions, with challenges but no immediate financial crisis, in fields (opera, single-sex colleges) with lots of doomsayers. Here’s a look at four key factors in how these cases shook out.
Egypt Launches ‘World’s Largest Digital Library’
“Eight million Egyptians signed up for the newly launched ‘Egyptian Bank of Knowledge’ on its first day of operation on Saturday … The project … aims to gather international encyclopaedias, online publications, research papers, theses, books and articles in one website which will be accessible to any user with an Egyptian IP address.” (Problem is, much of that content is in English, not Arabic.)
Facebook Nudity Day (That’ll Show The Censors)
The Jan. 14 protest “call[ed] for Facebook users to post an artwork depicting the naked body to protest the social media website’s ‘continuing censorship of artists, curators and critics who have been censored for posting art and images that depict the nude human body.'” And they did – “from Egon Schiele’s painting of himself masturbating and a phallic photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe to Japanese erotic prints and the accursed Courbet.”
Don’t Have More Female Choreographers Just For The Sake Of It, Says Akram Khan
“It is important to recognise that there is an imbalance, but there was an imbalance before for male choreographers. Pina Bausch, Martha Graham – the godmothers of contemporary dance – they were the big figures before, but for this generation it is slightly different.”
L.A. Opera Names Its First Artist-In-Residence: Matthew Aucoin
“The three-year post, created specially for Aucoin, calls for him to conduct some L.A. Opera performances and write a full-scale opera for its main stage.”
Lois Weisberg, 90, ‘The Most Significant Architect (Or Savior) Of Cultural Chicago The City Ever Has Known’
“Consider the evidence: No Weisberg means, arguably, no Taste of Chicago. No Chicago Blues Festival. No Chicago Gospel Music Festival. No Cows on Parade (those cows were copied everywhere; I saw some in France last summer). No After School Matters, surely the most successful arts-education initiative in the history of the city. No Storefront Theatre. No South Shore Line. Maybe no Millennium Park.”
Minnesota Opera Names Its Next General Director
A former baritone and an alumnus of the company’s young artist training program, Ryan Taylor, 43, is currently chief at the Arizona Opera, which he’s credited with turning around after a financial crisis.