Year-End Poll Results
Again this year, I swore off voting in what has become an epidemic of jazz popularity contests, also known as critics polls, with one exception. I don’t seem to be able to say no to … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-30
Cruising the Moskwa
Occasional Rifftides Moscow correspondent Svetlana Ilicheva (pictured) sent a report that may bring summer memories to those of us in the grip of the northern hemisphere winter. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-30
Screw Conventions
Liturgy’s new album, The Ark Work, wins the number one ‘avant’ album of 2015 over at Rolling Stone. They even mention John Luther Adams in the description. It is a remarkably original album, strongly compositional, and apparently … read more
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2015-12-30
Snapshot: the original 1952 London production of South Pacific
A complete archival multi-camera sound film of the original London production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, starring Mary Martin. The production, directed by Joshua Logan, was a reproduction of the original Broadway staging. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-12-30
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Author: Matthew Westphal
Abandoned Old Spanish Church Transformed Into Glorious Chagall-Meets-Diego-Rivera Skate Park
The Church of Santa Barbara in the town of Llanera “fell into disrepair after the Spanish civil war. Now, after decades of neglect, the Romanesque revival structure has been transformed into a street art skatepark. Called the Kaos Temple, its walls and vaulted ceilings are painted in kaleidoscoping rainbow patterns by Madrid street artist Okuda San Miguel.”
With Scathing Letter, Myung Whun Chung Resigns As Seoul Philharmonic Music Director
“It is sad that [the musicians’] achievements have been overshadowed by one person‘s fabricated statements. Lies and corruption may cause scandals, but human dignity and truth will prevail in the end. … Perhaps it is a reflection of Korean society that this has been allowed to happen.”
What The Mainstream Can Learn From 2015’s Queer Indie Cinema
“The problem is that, even though mainstream viewers have learned to appreciate queer stories, creators still think that a story or its characters’ queerness is enough to create a successful work of art, commercially or otherwise. Or worse, that depicting a character queer in a nuanced way will scare away audiences. But that’s not the case, and it’s becoming obvious.”
Scrooge Odyssey: Checking Out ‘A Christmas Carol’ Stagings Across The Nation
“Narrators kept assuring me that Marley is ‘dead as a doornail,’ and Scrooge’s line about wanting to meet all three ghosts ‘at once and get it over with’ failed to get a laugh every time. The Ghost of Christmas Past could be a Tim Burton-esque figure in a billowy white dress and top hat on a swing, or a flying, shirtless Roman soldier in a metallic silver kilt, or a Run-DMC-style ’80s rapper in a red Adidas track jacket and gold chain.”
Why This Theatre Critic Loves British Christmas Pantomimes
Lyn Gardner: “Sometimes friends look at me with sympathy when they ask if I’m on the annual panto patrol. But it’s a great art form that creates a special bond between performers and audience – and helps keep many theatres in the black.”
The Old Penn Station That Got Torn Down Wasn’t Really So Great (Anymore)
“Its demolition is the stuff of New York legend, an act of architectural vandalism so unspeakable that it gave rise to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, saved Grand Central Terminal and upended the city’s development priorities. … [Yet] the Penn Station that was torn down between 1963 and 1966 was scarcely the building it had been a half-century earlier.”
‘They Can’t Cage Your Mind’: New York Public Library Brings Spoken-Word Poetry To Rikers Island – And Inmates Love It
“They had been pried from their favorite television shows to attend – of all things – a poetry reading. Some nice people from the public library, they were told. Then came the poet: unshaven, in his early 20s, dark hooded sweatshirt, dark T-shirt, dark ball cap slung backward on his head. Some men leaned forward, elbows on their knees. Expressions shifted to curiosity: This was not what they were expecting.”
What Science Fiction Movie Or Novel Is Most Prescient Today? A Debate
“This year, NASA confirmed the existence of liquid water on Mars, raising the possibility of Martian life; a genetically engineered animal can now be sold for human consumption, as in a tale by Margaret Atwood; and a Silicon Valley research institute was formed to create a computer with the intellectual ability of a human, and to confront the threat such artificial intelligence poses to humanity. …”
The Subversively Comical Adult Coloring Books Of The Early 1960s
“‘This is my suit. Color it gray or I will lose my job,’ reads a caption next to a picture of a man getting dressed for work” in 1961’s Executive Coloring Book. “The coloring books that followed managed to cover, between them, a selection of the decade’s neuroses: national security, the red scare, technology, sex, mental illness. … There were coloring books that made fun of communists and coloring books that made fun of people who were scared of communists.”