“The world went into shock earlier this year after Islamic State released videos of its bearded operatives smashing ancient artworks with sledgehammers and drills. But after U.S.-led airstrikes on refineries and tankers reduced the group’s $1 million daily oil revenue by nearly two-thirds, the razing gave way to looting for sale via eBay, Facebook and Whatsapp.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
The Making Of An Alt-Classical Prodigy
“At the premiere two weeks prior, at the Kaufman Music Center, the grown-ups had shot down some of Paris [Lavidis’s] most rascally ideas: using firecrackers as percussion, smoking a hookah onstage. So he’d improvised, substituting a whip for the fireworks and handing out kazoos instead of pipes. But the compromise had stolen some of his thunder.”
How You Lie – And Whether You Think You’re Lying – Depends On Your Culture
“Some aspects of lie detection, especially those elements measured by lie detector tests, might be cultural. For instance, what if the person who might be lying is speaking a second language? What if she grew up in a different place than you, with different social norms? How difficult is it to spot a liar then? Is there any hope for a scientific approach?”
Junot Díaz Remembers The First Time He Got Beaten Up
“As these things go, it wasn’t too bad. I didn’t actually lose any teeth or break any limbs or misplace an eye. … I was furious and ashamed, but above all else I was afraid. Afraid of my assailants. Afraid they would corner me again. Afraid of a second beat-down. Afraid and afraid and afraid. Eventually the bruises and the rage faded, but not the fear.”
Ridding ‘Kiss Me, Kate’ Of ‘Taming Of The Shrew’ Misogyny
Darko Tresnjak: “Taming of the Shrew is designed to give uproarious pleasure over the subjugation of a woman. In Kiss Me, Kate, she is an equal-opportunity offender. We made sure that she slugs him 10 times as much as he spanks her.”
Classical Critic Edward Greenfield, 86
“He began his journalistic career in 1953 as a political writer for the Manchester Guardian, taking up reviewing recordings for the paper in 1955 (he was later appointed the Guardian‘s chief music critic in 1977, retiring in 1993).” He also spent 55 years as a contributing critic for Gramophone.
It Seems There Are Four Kinds of Introversion
“As more regular, non-scientist types started to talk about introversion, psychologist Jonathan Cheek began to notice something: The way many introverts defined the trait was different from the way he and most of his academic colleagues did.”
“The Necessary, Inevitable Thing” – Adam Gopnik On Love Lyrics, From Shakespeare To Taylor Swift
“The love song, whether from Shakespeare or his lessers, is to the currency of our feelings what the dollar bill is to our economy, the dining-room table to our family life – the necessary, inevitable thing. Exactly because everything is a love song, we sigh at another one, even as we prepare to sing it.”
Ten Great Writers Nobody Reads
Stephen Sparks: “I haven’t come closer to understanding the vicissitudes of literary fortune (the moment I do, I’ll open my own publishing house), but in studying these writers, I’ve come up with a set of categories into which many fall.”
She Calls Her Dancers ‘Action Heroes’ (And She’s Probably Right)
Elizabeth Streb: “I am a criminal, and we are a blunt instrument charging forward.” Says one of her company members, “You’d better be able to look fear in the face and not run.”