“Brazilians celebrate the day before Lent with dancing samba in skimpy outfits. In New Orleans, revelers throw beads at Mardi Gras. In this dusty central Mexican town, they have a different kind of a blast. … Even amid the inexhaustible tally of quirky rituals that communities anywhere hold dear, the Fat Tuesday frenzy in San Juan de la Vega elicits awe.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
A Children’s Cartoon Landed This Man In An Iranian Prison
“In 2006, the Iranian artist Mana Neyestani sat down to draw a children’s cartoon for a weekly magazine called Iran Jome. The image showed a 10-year-old boy named Soheil trying to have a conversation with a cockroach in a nonsensical cockroach language. The insect didn’t understand the boy and responded, ‘Namana?’ – which means, ‘What?'”
At This Lit Festival, Books Really Are A Matter Of Life And Death
“There are obvious security challenges in organising a literary festival in a country where people get killed for the things they write. … [Yet] the Karachi literature festival (KLF) is now in its sixth year, and welcomed more than 100,000 people through its security scanners last weekend.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 02.18.15
Arts Predispositions III: Noes
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-02-18
From Cariwyl Hebert: Reaching the 97 percent
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-02-18
Your Museum as an Essential Community Space
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-02-18
Cleaving to Cleveland: Where I’ll Be on My Winter Workation
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-02-18
[ssba_hide]
National Symphony To Let Eschenbach Go In 2017
“The National Symphony Orchestra announced this morning that Christoph Eschenbach will become Conductor Laureate of the orchestra in the 2017-18 season. In other words, his contract, after what will have been seven seasons as music director of the orchestra and of the Kennedy Center, is not being renewed.”
Hermitage Museum Staffer Arrested For Cutting Illustrations From Books And Selling Them
“An employee of the State Hermitage Museum’s research library has been arrested in connection to the suspected theft of historic illustrations, engravings and photographs from its collection. The images were allegedly cut out from from books in the library and offered for sale at antiquarian bookshops.”
And Now Random House Will Introduce | An Unpublished Book By Dr. Seuss!
“The manuscript had been in a box that was discovered in the home of Dr. Seuss (otherwise known as Theodore Geisel) in the La Jolla section of San Diego, shortly after his death in 1991, and set aside. In 2013, Mr. Geisel’s widow, Audrey, and longtime secretary and friend, Claudia Prescott, went through the box and found the nearly complete manuscript, along with other unpublished work.”
Paris Museum Shuts Down Without Warning
“It is a sad 20th birthday for the Musée Maillol in Paris, which shut its doors indefinitely this weekend. The museum has posted a message on its website that says the closure is due to planned renovation work, but there is more to the story. On 5 February, the company that manages the museum, Tecniarte, filed for bankruptcy.”
New Opera Boss’s First Decision: Fire Wagner’s Great-Granddaughter
When Darío Lopérfido took over last week at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the very first change he made in the house’s program was to cancel the contract of Katharina Wagner – great-granddaughter of the composer and director of the Bayreuth Festival – to direct Parsifal in December. His stated reason: “I wanted something artistically stronger.” (in Spanish)
How Bad Has The Mess At Buenos Aires’s Once-Brilliant Opera House Been?
Enormously, breathtakingly bad. The Teatro Colón, once the peer of almost any opera company in the world, has gone through years of badly-targeted staff cuts, unfinished renovation and construction, labor unrest (justified and not), and disastrous political interference. Now a new general director faces the fearsome challenges of cleaning up. (in English)