We Are at War
AJBlog: PostClassic Published 2015-07-16
Cal Tjader’s 90th
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-07-16
Mike Lesser, R.I.P.: ‘In Conversation With a Dying Friend’
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2015-07-16
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Author: Matthew Westphal
‘A Writer For Grown-Ups’: Richard Ford On Anton Chekhov
“As is true of many American readers who encountered Chekhov first in college, my experience with his stories was both abrupt and brief, and came too early. … Chekhov seems to me a writer for adults, his work becoming useful and also beautiful by attracting attention to mature feelings, to complicated human responses and small issues of moral choice within large, overarching dilemmas.”
Every Nation Has A Chekhov – Who’s Whose?
“We took it upon ourselves to search the world for authors who have been called ‘the Chekhov’ of their country or, more endearingly in Cynthia Ozick’s characterization of Alice Munro, ‘our Chekhov.’ Chekhovs from Ireland, Canada, India, China, Mexico, The United States, Greece, Israel, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Japan have made the list so far, but we, as readers, are in perpetual search of the next Chekhov of X …”
Black Dancers, White Ballets – Misty Copeland Is Not Enough (Classical Dance Makes The NY Times Op-Ed Page)
Laurie A. Woodard, formerly of Dance Theater of Harlem, now teaching at NYU: “Ms. Copeland’s career, on the stage and beyond, has brought ballet into the wider culture in ways Louis XIV could not have imagined. … [Yet] the insular world of classical ballet has limited not just the number of black ballerinas; there are only a handful of black classical choreographers. And for companies other than D.T.H., black spectators are rare. The days of whiting-up are behind us, but ballet still needs to change.”
Kennedy Center Honors 2015: Cicely Tyson, Seiji Ozawa, Rita Moreno, Carole King, George Lucas, And The Eagles
For the first time, the roster of honorees has expanded from five to six.
Female Playwrights Are Still Underrepresented On Stages, But At Least We’re Making Some Progress
“Roughly one-fifth” – 22%, actually – “of the productions staged at hundreds of theaters nationwide over the past three seasons were written by women, according to a study to be released Friday.” That’s up five percentage points from 2002.
‘Banned In Syria’ – Shooting A Parody TV Series Amidst A Civil War
“A location scout was preparing for the day’s filming when a single bullet killed him instantly. The cast and crew continued undeterred. That is the bargain when you sign up to produce a rebel television series in the wartime Syrian city of Aleppo with little pay, no insurance and militias that want you dead.”
Are Human Beings The Only Political Animals? (Nope)
“If all social life is political, won’t it be necessary to think of the designation ‘political animal’ as a genus name, including many species, rather than as something unique to human beings? After all, and as Aristotle knew well enough, there are many highly social species of animals.”
Never Forget: The Biggest Subsidisers Of The Arts Are Those Who Work In The Arts
Lyn Gardner: “Very little work would ever make it to the stage if it was not for people giving their labour away for free, or being paid very poorly for what they do. … Just because you are doing a job you love, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be properly paid for it.”
They’ve Found The Literary Journal Dickens Edited, With His Own Handwritten Notes
“In a lucky coincidence that would not look out of place in a Charles Dickens novel, an antiquarian book dealer has stumbled across what is believed to be Dickens’s own personally annotated copy of a literary periodical he edited.” Literary Hub calls it “the Rosetta Stone of Victorian studies.”