“Interviews with over two dozen people involved in the episode suggest that Sony – slow to realize the depths of its peril – let its troubles deepen by mounting a public defense only after enormous damage had been done.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Milan’s Symphony Orchestra Saved For Another Year As Italian Government Finally Guarantees 2015 Funding
Since the fall, the management and supporters of the Orchestra “Giuseppe Verdi” have been warning that, because €3 million in promised government funding since 2013 had still not arrived and no subsidy for 2015 had been allocated, the ensemble could be forced to shut down. With less than 48 hours remaining until the new year, Italy’s culture minister at last came through. (in Italian)
Eileen Atkins Remembers “The Killing Of Sister George”
She and Beryl Reid played the leads in the first British play about lesbians, touring the country to stone-silent audiences (when they weren’t walking out). Then they got to London.
Jeff Koons Faces Another Plagiarism Accusation In Paris
“A second sculpture by Jeff Koons is conspicuously absent from his retrospective at the Centre Pompidou after a photographer’s widow complained to the art star and the museum’s administration that Naked (1988) constituted copyright infringement.”
Hilary Mantel Writes About Grief
“Grief is like fear in the way it gnaws the gut. Your mind is on a short tether, turning round and round. You fear to focus on your grief but cannot concentrate on anything else. You look with incredulity at those going about their ordinary lives. … Your former life still seems to exist, but you can’t get back to it; there is a glimpse in dreams of those peacock lawns and fountains, but you’re fenced out, and each morning you wake up to the loss over again.”
How Shostakovich’s “The Bolt” Changed Ballet History
“Despite its seemingly impeccable narrative of industrial espionage being routed by heroic factory workers, its creators were too tempted to have fun with their cast of baddies (the Lazy Idler, the Petty Bourgeois Woman, and the decadent, western types satirised by the local amateur theatre troupe). They were too obviously bored by the decent workers, the earnest members of the local Komsomol group – the young communist league.”
The French Are Simply Mad For Christopher Wheeldon’s “American In Paris”
The choreographer’s stage adaptation of the fabled Gene Kelly-Leslie Caron Hollywood musical – the first ever – at the Théâtre du Châtelet (and headed to Broadway) has won ecstatic reviews and completely sold out its run. (includes audio)
The Strange Connections Between What We’re Hearing And How Things Taste
Turns out there is actually a science to the music or background noise in restaurants, cafes and grocery stores – and to why airline food tastes bland.
Hong Kong’s Oldest TV Station Near Collapse
Asia Television Ltd. (universally called ATV) hasn’t been able to pay its employees for December, and only this week gave them half of their November salaries; its broadcast license could be cancelled in the new year. “Yet there are no sympathetic calls among the city’s public to help save the local institution, which in recent years has lost most of its programming power and cultural cache, as it instead targets mainland Chinese viewers.”
The Original “It Girl”
“What is an It Girl? According to the dictionary installed on a MacBook Pro, she is ‘a young woman who achieves celebrity because of her socialite lifestyle’. … But the original It Girl, as the dictionary acknowledges, was one of the most successful and revolutionary film stars of the silent era, Clara Bow. When she earned the title, it meant something completely different.”