“His new ballet, Woolf Works, which is derived from, or based on – the verbs being precisely the problem – three novels by Virginia Woolf, recently premiered at Covent Garden in London. It is a brilliant, uneven, tender piece – and it offers one way of thinking about [a] constant conundrum for the art of ballet:” that, as George Balanchine put it, “We can’t dance synonyms.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
That Weird Early 20th-Century Announcer-Voice Accent: Where It Came From And Why It Went Away
James Fallows asked his readers “why the stentorian, phony-British Announcer Voice that dominated newsreel narration, stage and movie acting, and public discourse in the United States during the first half of the 20th century had completely disappeared. The responses fall into interesting categories.”
What’s The Key To A Happy, Fulfilling Life? Don’t Ask An Intellectual
“In this sense, a philosopher, academic, or any kind of writer is the worst person to ask about how to live a fulfilling life. Their obligation to themselves is not to resolve their own problems, but to plumb the depths of their own discontent, seeking after a truth in unhappiness. It is not likely that anything that can be articulated in an intellectually honest essay can bestow a fulfilling life on you.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 06.10.15
Cooking, peaches and tasting the arts
AJBlog: Field NotesPublished 2015-06-10
“Community”
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-06-09
The Prison Memoir That Caught Algren’s Attention
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2015-06-10
A Tech Hiatus
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-06-10
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James Conlon Is Next Chief Conductor Of Italy’s Top Radio Orchestra
The American conductor, currently music director of Los Angeles Opera, has been named the new principal conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI in Turin, beginning in 2016.
First It Was A Rembrandt, Then It Wasn’t. Now It’s A Rembrandt Again
“The painting was sliced down the middle and straight through its center in the 19th century, probably to be sold as two Rembrandt portraits. At some point in the next 40 years, it was sutured back together with pieces of an entirely different canvas, and layered with paint to cover up its scars.”
Meet The New U.S. Poet Laureate, The First Hispanic In The Post
“As a child, Juan Felipe Herrera learned to love poetry by singing about the Mexican Revolution with his mother, a migrant farmworker in California. Inspired by her spirit, he has spent his life crossing borders, erasing boundaries and expanding the American chorus.”
A Poet Laureate Whose Work Is Meant To Be Said Out Loud
Dwight Garner: “[Juan Felipe Herrera’s appointment] makes you wish the job still entailed writing ceremonial verse, commissioned in bygone days for events like the openings of bridges or the deaths of fine old soldiers. Mr. Herrera is a poet you’d like to hear declaim from the National Mall.”
It’s Another Simple, Abstract, Perfectly Shaped Anish Kapoor Sculpture – Why Is All France Arguing About It?
Because Kapoor is cheerfully describing it – Dirty Corner – as “the vagina of the queen” taking power, and it’s installed at Versailles.
‘Bibliotherapy’ – Can Reading A Book Prescription Really Make You More Mentally Healthy?
Our correspondent relates a session with a bibliotherapist at Alain de Botton’s School of Life (it worked) – and explains that the practice (if not the term) is very old indeed.