“Copeland’s proceeding along a kind of inevitable music-box destiny, but her path to becoming a star ballerina has been as dramatic, unlikely, and hinged on coincidence as the plots of most ballets – the ones that have plots, anyway.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Netflix Launches In France, Beginning European Expansion
Despite opposition from French telecom providers worried about competition l’exception culturelle, Netflix began service in France this week, with Germany and Belgium being added later this month. The company has a partnership with one large French ISP (Bouygues) and has already commissioned one original French series.
Adulthood Is Not Dying In American Culture – It’s Just Starting To Bloom
Don Draper, Tony Soprano, Walter White – “Each of these tragic exemplars of ‘adulthood’ is destroyed exactly because of his failure to behave like an adult. … In the main they are frauds who merely assume the trappings of ‘adulthood’ in order to participate in a society that would reject them if it knew the truth. … It’s not to do with having ‘killed off all the grown-ups’ as [A.O.] Scott has it: quite the contrary. It’s adulthood defined for the audience by its very absence on the screen.”
If Adulthood Is Dying In American Culture, It’s The Modern Economy That’s Killing It
Andrew O’Hehir: “Well, if [A.O.] Scott gets to play frustrated English professor in his article, I get to play former college Marxist in mine … There really is something beneath his ‘death of adulthood’ premise, whether or not you like the prejudicial phrase. But to coin a phrase: It’s the economy, stupid.”
A Feeling of Control: How America Can Finally Learn to Deal With Its Impulses
“The ability to delay gratification has been held up as the one character trait to rule them all – the key to academic success, financial security, and social well-being. … Which lends a kind of overpowering weight to the question: If self-control is so important, how are we supposed to achieve it?” Sheer willpower, it’s turning out, isn’t the best approach.
It’s The Little Annoyances That’ll Really Kill You
“The godawful commute. The fight you had with your partner this morning. The kitchen sink that won’t stop leaking. Minor annoyances? Maybe. But these little, everyday hassles can add up and may be as likely to do you in as the bigger, more serious stressors in life, like divorce or job loss, according to new research.”
David Lynch Thinks No One Will Ever Agree On What “Eraserhead” Is About
“No one, to my knowledge, has ever seen the film the way I see it. The interpretation of what it’s all about has never been my interpretation.” (But what’s scary: “I love the world of Eraserhead. I would love to live in that world.”)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 09.16.14
What Killed Adulthood? Pop Culture or Capitalism?
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-09-16
Somewhere between crude and crass
AJBlog: The Artful Manager | Published 2014-09-16
Matisse Cut-Outs, Records, And Making Art Seem Scarce
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts | Published 2014-09-17
The Disappearing Publisher
AJBlog: PostClassic | Published 2014-09-16
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Getting Humans To Comprehend “Deep Time”
“For someone whose life expectancy is usually less than 100 years, it’s nearly impossible to imagine something so vast as geological or deep time,” says J.D. Talasek of the National Academy of Sciences. So he – a believer in the power of metaphor – assembled a group of 18 artworks to help get the idea across.
Kevin Kline Has Issues With Authority (And That Includes Maggie Smith)
Just for instance, when he played Hamlet for Liviu Ciulei, he recounts, “The first day’s rehearsal, I picked up a chair and moved it a few feet, and he said, ‘No, no, Hamlet would never do that, he’d never move a chair himself, because he’s a prince.’ I said, ‘I’m the prince, I can do whatever I want.'” The next time he played Hamlet, he directed himself.