No less a Shakespearean than Mark Rylance recently said yes. Director Rupert Goold thinks shining a light on that prejudice is important. Booker Prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson says removing the prejudice from the script “is to tear out its very heart.” At least one Arab director won’t even go near the play.
Author: Matthew Westphal
The Power And Importance Of Touch (It’s Huge)
Remember the orphanages of Ceausescu-era Romania, overstuffed and understaffed institutions where infants and young children were severely touch-deprived – and grew up seriously disturbed? Maria Konnikova explains why that was no fluke.
The 1906 Novel That Imagined New York In 2015
“Set ninety years after the cataclysmic Terror of 1925, Sutphen’s book imagines that the world of 2015 has devolved into three tribes: the Painted People, the House People, and the marauding Doomsmen. Keeps, drawbridges, archery, and Sirs and Ladies have grown back as thickly as vines over the ruins of American civilization. At the center of it all is the city of Doom, ‘gigantic, threatening, omnipotent,’ and ruled by the post-apocalyptic godfather Dom Gillian.”
Wordnesia: When You Forget How To Spell Or Pronounce The Simplest Of Werds
In the 1996 movie Black Sheep David Spade, “glances at a fold-up map and realizes he somehow has become unfamiliar with the name for paved driving surfaces. ‘Robes? Rouges? Rudes?‘ Nothing seems right. … ‘Rowds. Row-ads.‘ … Row-ad-type word wig outs similar to the one portrayed in that movie are things that actually happen, in real life, to people with full and total control over their mental capacities.”
Why Do Japanese Seem Fond Of Insects While Westerners Abhor Them?
“Travel agencies advertise firefly-watching tours, there are televised beetle-wrestling competitions and beetle petting zoos. Department stores and even vending machines sell live insects. … Not all Japanese, perhaps not even the majority, admire insects. But while Western culture amplifies our perhaps innately human suspicion of insects into distaste and fear, Japanese culture encourages affection, even reverence, for the six-legged. Why?”
Fancy Feast For The Ears: Music Written Especially For Cats
“New research shows that cats do enjoy music; just not the stuff humans tend to pick. A team of psychologists at the University of Wisconsin created custom music designed to appeal to cats by mixing beats that fall into the same frequency range that cats use to communicate with one another. The songs also have a tempo similar to the beat that cats purr to.” (includes sound clips)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 03.04.15
On Selfies vs. Self-Portraits and Universal Beauty vs. What I Find Beautiful (Beauty Class Portfolio Assignments)
AJBlog: Jumper Published 2015-03-04
Art and Puppies
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-03-04
Hot competition
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-03-04
Just Because: Dizzy Gillespie, 1987
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-03-03
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ASCAP Pulled In More Than $1 Billion In 2014
“ASCAP, the music licensing agency, is in one sense fighting for its survival, seeking to change decades-old rules to fit the economics of online music. In another, it is finding ways to distribute more money than ever to its thousands of songwriters. … [Last year was] the first time that ASCAP or any organization like it has raised so much.”
Here’s How The Egyptian Museum Is Responding To The Tutankhamun’s Beard Debacle
“The embattled Egyptian Museum says it has begun to log every act of conservation it makes, as it attempts to restore its reputation following the furore over Tutankhamun’s botched beard.”
There Will Be No Oprah “‘Night, Mother” On Broadway (“Too Depressing”)
“Last February, The New York Times reported that talk show queen Oprah Winfrey was in talks to make her long-awaited Broadway debut in a revival of Marsha Norman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play ‘night, Mother opposite five-time Tony-Award winner Audra McDonald. Winfrey was reportedly interested in portraying the role of a mother who desperately tries to prevent her daughter from killing herself.”