“Released in 1981, Softporn was controversial, cheesy, and earnest to a fault. It also presaged today’s ongoing debates about who computers and games are for.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Massachusetts Becomes First U.S. State To Fund El Sistema-Style Music Education
“The dozen or so organizations and schools receiving the first round of funding include the social service Kids 4 Harmony program in Pittsfield, Sistema Somerville and the Cape Conservatory in Hyannis.” (includes audio and video)
Even Pippi Longstocking Gets Caught Up In Racial Controversy
“In Sweden, Pippi is something more: a national treasure and embodiment of the country’s egalitarian spirit. So when the Swedish national broadcaster announced this fall that it would edit two scenes that it considered offensive in a 1969 television series about Pippi – including one in which she says her father is ‘king of the Negroes,’ using a Swedish word now viewed as a racial slur – it hit a nerve.”
Christian Bale Explains Why He Sometimes Loses It With Journalists
“They can just poke you and poke you and poke you as though it’s just fun and games and means nothing. I don’t wish to cultivate that thing so many public figures have, where you basically become numb, become a roadblock, because so many people are saying nasty things or attacking. And I just go no, no. They win if I do that. I have to stay human, so sometimes that means you react.”
How Calatrava’s Ground Zero Train Station Grew Into A $4 Billion Juggernaut
“Its colossal avian presence may yet guarantee the hub a place in the pantheon of civic design in New York. But it cannot escape another, more ignominious distinction as one of the most expensive and most delayed train stations ever built.”
UK Pledges £141M To London “Olympicopolis” Arts Hub
“A new Sadler’s Wells dance theatre, a world-class V&A museum and exhibition space, and two university campuses that are dedicated to arts, design and engineering will rise on the site of the 2012 Games.”
Now Christie’s Is Losing Its Boss, Too
Less than two weeks after rival auction house Sotheby’s saw its CEO resign under pressure, Steven Murphy has stepped down from the helm of Christie’s after a four-year tenure – a decision Murphy describes as “mutual and amenable”.
Turin’s Opera House Persuades Gianandrea Noseda Not To Quit As Music Director
“The agreement will keep Mr. Noseda – who has been enjoying a growing international reputation and who was just named the conductor of the year by the classical music publication Musical America – with a company he has been credited with elevating to a new level. And it offers some welcome news in what has been a rough year for opera in its birthplace, Italy.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 12.02.14
No Gehry Guggenheim: The Six Outliers Are Finalists for Helsinki Outpost
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2014-12-02
Spalding Takes On Art’s “Self-Congratulatory In-Group”
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2014-12-02
Smokin’ Ivan Vasiliev Manifests “The Flames of Paris”
AJBlog: Fresh Pencil Published 2014-12-02
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$100K Grawemeyer Award Goes To Wolfgang Rihm
The 62-year-old composer’s winning piece, IN-SCHRIFT 2, was composed for the Berlin Philhamonic to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its concert hall, the Philharmonie, and had musicians spread throughout the venue’s famous vineyard seating.