“As usual, Google used its backpack-like Street View Trekker, the same hardware it used for its expeditions into Nepal, the Grand Canyon, and the Galapagos Islands, for taking these images. So if you don’t have a trip to Jordan planned anytime soon, you can now take a virtual hike around Petra and explore sites like the Treasury, the Street of Façades, and the Monastery.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Finding The Right ‘Nutcracker’ For You And/Or The Kids
“For many children, The Nutcracker will be their first experience of live theater. If you don’t want your child to talk during a performance, do what I do: Pour a handful of M&M’s – or any pellet-size candy – into his or her lap. (Skirts are ideally shaped; for pants, add a napkin.) … To optimize the viewing experience, here is a guide – in order of calendar appearance and including some options for older audiences – to help you decide on the right Nutcracker.”
A Suicide In Ohio State University’s Art Museum
A former OSU security guard who had been terminated in 2009 vandalized several artworks and then shot himself in the head at the Wexner Center for the Arts late Sunday morning.
Google’s Cultural Institute Finally Adds Performing Arts
“The Google Cultural Institute [is] a free website that made its name in recent years by digitizing and displaying the collections of more than 800 art museums and historical archives. The Google initiative is now moving into the performing arts, and this exhibition is the first fruit of its partnerships with more than 60 groups from around the world – with the groups providing the content and Google providing the gee-whiz technology.”
What It’s Like To Live In A Frank Lloyd Wright House
“Literally hundreds of Wright’s designs are still in private hands, and the current owners experience aspects of these unique buildings that docent-led tours can’t showcase: repair, renovation, upkeep, and even the occasional die-hard architecture fan knocking on the front door all make the experience of living in a Wright home different than the norm. Curbed spoke with owners of a half-dozen Wright homes to learn what it’s like to live inside one of the architect’s designs.”
Why I Believed That Dumb Thomas-Pynchon-Is-Dead Hoax
Scott Timberg: “A sudden, unexplained announcement of just about anything involving Pynchon makes more sense than the equivalent involving almost any other writer. The most obvious reason is because Pynchon is a recluse: The details of his life are better known today … but for a long time, even Pynchon zealots were not quite sure where he was. … The Internet’s combination of mystery and conspiratorial nonsense makes it the perfect vehicle for puzzling news about the writer.”
Orchestra At Denmark’s Top Opera And Ballet House Faces Major Cuts
“The move is part of the government’s plans to cut about 600 million kroner from the nation’s theatres, museums, art schools and other state-owned culture institutions. As it stands, the Royal Danish Orchestra will see 14 musicians laid off outright and seven positions frozen.”
Metamorphosis: When A Successful Author Adopts A New Language
Jhumpa Lahiri: “I’ve been writing in Italian for almost two years, and I feel that I’ve been transformed, almost reborn. But the change, this new opening, is costly; like Daphne [after she was turned into a tree], I, too, find myself confined. I can’t move as I did before, the way I was used to moving in English. A new language, Italian, covers me like a kind of bark. I remain inside: renewed, trapped, relieved, uncomfortable.”
The Problem With African ‘Message Movies’
“Because most of these films are targeted at an international audience, which is already saddled with its own preconceptions of Africa, well-meaning message movies can ring false. Why tie the film so explicitly to a cause that ‘needs immediate attention,’ whether through the plotting or promotion, if not to profit on the outdated idea of that there is a foreign land that needs saving?”
ABT Makes A Big Move Into Southern California
“Balletomanes practically had to rub their eyes over the news this past year that ABT was permanently moving its annual Ratmansky Nutcracker from the Brooklyn Academy of Music to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts and concurrently starting a West Coast branch of its education division, also to be housed at the Costa Mesa arts center.”