Author: Matthew Westphal

The Classical Audience Isn’t Dying Off, It’s Just Changing, Says Richard Wagner’s (Other) Great-Granddaughter

Nike Wagner, director of Bonn’s Beethovenfest: “The connoisseurs of bygone times are giving way to the consumers of today. And these people tend to gravitate toward the mainstream, toward popular big events with pop, rock and entertainment. Yet classical music, in the widest sense, has always been written and intended for a minority audience. So it’s paradoxical – but this way, the highest quality, ‘elite’ works are also getting exposure.”

When Certain Sounds Really Do Drive You Crazy

“Named in the early 2000s by the neurologists Pawel and Margaret Jastreboff, misophonia – also called selective sound sensitivity syndrome – is one of many symptom clusters that don’t have a clear etiology. Those who suffer from misophonia recoil from human-made noises like chewing and whistling. The risks of being tormented by everyday experiences, like going to the movies only to find themselves sitting near a popcorn-cruncher, can make them too anxious to leave the house.”

The Pixar Theory Of Life And Labor (It’s Really A Silicon Valley Company At Heart)

“In film after film, Pixar presents narratives chiefly concerned with characters trying to be the best at what they do, or otherwise prove their usefulness … resulting in a filmography that consistently conflates individual flourishing with the embrace of unremitting work. … This excess, epitomized as the complete entanglement of an individual’s private life with their employment, is at the core of Pixar’s conceptualization of what it is to be a person.”

‘Alice Is My Ideal Reader’ – ‘Reading Lolita In Tehran’ Author On (Re-)Reading Lewis Carroll

Azar Nafisi: “More than almost any other fictional character, Alice is in constant conversation with herself and others: probing, asking, reminding me of my infant daughter who would call out for me and, when I entered the room in the dim light of early morning, point to the objects around her and ask, ‘wassdis? wassdis?'”

“I Don’t Think She Looked Up At The Stage, Except To Register A Laugh” – Patti LuPone In Her Own Words On The Cell-Phone Incident

The actress/folk hero explains what exactly the audience member whose phone she took away was doing, where in the theater the offender was sitting, and why her nonstop texting was distracting everyone else in the house. (Patti also reminds us that she’s never stopped a show because of a cell phone or texting.) (audio)

Are Ethics Professors Particularly Good People? No More Than Most Of Us, And They Don’t Really Try Any Harder (That’s A Good Thing)

In an essay titled “Cheeseburger ethics,” Eric Schwitzgebel argues, “We – most of us – actually aim at mediocrity. The cheeseburger ethicist is perhaps only unusually honest with herself about this. We aspire to be about as morally good as our peers … B+ on the great moral curve of white middle-class college-educated North Americans. Let others get the As.”