Matthew Westphal – Page 1924 – ArtsJournal Wayback

The 100 Most Valuable Movie Stars Of 2014

“Vulture has collected data (including domestic and foreign box-office numbers, social-media buzz, critical respect, Twitter mentions, Oscar nominations/wins, and E-Score Celebrity rankings by E-Poll) in every important metric that measures modern movie stardom, inputting those numbers into a formula crafted with our guest statistician, FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten.”

It’s The World’s First-Ever Iranian Feminist Vampire Western

Oh yes, it’s real. It was quite a hit at Sundance last winter, and it’s already been nominated for a Gotham Award. (includes trailer)

Why Would Harvey Fierstein, Of All People, Write A Show About The 1899 Newsboys’ Strike?

“Kids love it” – his brother’s kids, specifically, loved the Disney movie – “so I had that affinity. I got stuck with the story, and there was little I could change, but, as the strike happened during the time of the women’s struggle to vote, I began thinking about my own recent turn of the century.”

Maya Angelou Describes Her Stepfather’s Greatest Con, And The Racist Who Fell For It

“Suffice to say the scam includes one racist Southerner, three persuasive actors, a tract of land, and $50,000 in cash.” (video)

75 Years Of Live Literature At The 92nd Street Y

“Seventy-five years ago on Sunday, writer William Carlos Williams helped inaugurate what would become this country’s most famous literary reading series, at New York’s 92nd Street Y Poetry Center.” (includes audio clips)

HBO Expected To Lay Off More Than 150 People This Week

The cuts, amounting to about 7% of HBO’s workforce, are part of company-wide layoffs at Time Warner.

Positive Thinking Isn’t Always So Powerful – It Might Even Hold You Back

“As a German citizen who came to the United States relatively late in life, I was initially struck by how much more positive thinking was valued in the United States than back in Europe.” Research psychologist Gabriele Oettingen had presumed this was a good thing – until she started doing some studies. It seems that some kinds of positive thinking are a lot less helpful than others.

Dancing About Peptides: Science PhD Students Choreograph Their Theses

“Why would you want to write a PhD abstract when you could make it truly abstract – through the medium of interpretive dance? For the seventh year running, Science magazine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have challenged PhD students to do just that.” (includes video)

Roombas Dance To The “Blue Danube” Waltz

An interaction designer and a choreographer worked together to program a dozen of the little robot vacuum cleaners (yes, six as boys and six as girls) to dance as if they were in a Vienna ballroom. The only problem: Roombas get distracted by dust. (includes video)

Author: Matthew Westphal