“Hachette Book Group will start selling books straight from tweets, though it can’t be labeled more than an experiment for now: The publisher has partnered with digital distributor Gumroad to sell three gifty print books ‘for a limited time and in limited quantities’ via the books’ authors’ tweets.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
There Was A Real-Life Lolita
“The story of 11-year-old Sally Horner’s abduction changed the course of 20th-century literature. She just never got to tell it herself.”
New Sacred Music Is Now Cool (And “Squeaky-Gate Music” Is Over)
Peter Phillips, director of the Tallis Scholars: “The standard of singing in our liturgical and concert choirs has steadily gone up, to the point where many non-Christian composers now feel able to express themselves fully writing for them. … Sacred choral music has aligned itself with orchestral and operatic composition as an accepted medium for contemporary thought.”
Misty Copeland Dances For The Wall Street Journal
She performs an excerpt from Alexei Ratmansky’s version of The Nutcracker, then talks about her career, body image, Under Armour, and her upcoming “docu-series”. (video)
If Positive Thinking Doesn’t Work, What Does? WOOP Does
For decades, from Norman Vincent Peale to Oprah Winfrey, we’ve been told that the power of positive thinking is real. Now some researchers are arguing that, at best, it’s no sure thing and could even hold us back. So what’s a goal-oriented person to do? WOOP. (Yes, it’s an acronym.)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 12.09.14
The weirdest day of my recent life
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2014-12-09
Boston’s Arts Czar – Real Or Window Dressing?
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2014-12-09
Will Nashville’s Gentrification Destroy Its Music Scene?
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2014-12-09
Preparing for Lawsuit? Why Might Neil MacGregor Be Doubling Down on His Elgin Marbles Bet?
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2014-12-09
Recent Viewing: Films About Hersch, Brown And McFarland
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2014-12-09
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Broadway Press Agent Bans Wall Street Journal Writer Who Walks Out Of Plays
In response to Joanne Kaufman’s column about how she regularly bails out at intermission from shows to which she’s received press tickets, top Broadway publicist Rick Miramontez announced that he will “unburden Joltin’ Joanne from her hardship.”
Classical Grammy Nominations 2015: Both John Adamses, Seattle Symphony, Partch
John Luther Adam’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Become Ocean and John (Coolidge) Adams’s City Noir are both up for awards, as are the beleaguered Atlanta Symphony, the up-and-coming Seattle Symphony, 86-year-old pianist Leon Fleisher, and Partch (the percussion ensemble, not the late American composer/hobo).
Bolshoi Ballet Star Alla Sizova Dead At 75
“[Her] outsize talent was apparent even before she joined the Kirov (now the Mariinsky) in 1958. … Her extraordinarily high jump and astounding technical prowess as the Queen of the Dryads in a school performance of Don Quixote won raves from the Leningrad critics and a nickname, Flying Sizova.”
Aaron Sorkin Under Fire For “The Newsroom” Episode About Campus Rape
“Mr. Sorkin, in an astonishing case of prescience, created a plot that hewed closely to the recent article in Rolling Stone magazine about an accusation of gang rape at the University of Virginia.” The backlash to the script is coming close to the backlash against Rolling Stone , too.