“I believe I have not reached my stride, which is why I persist. The day I turn to you and say, ‘John, what I just did in this role was a real winner,’ I hope you’ll have the courage and decency to throw a wreath around my head, and then so very quietly and compassionately shoot me.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Reading Insecurity: Has The Internet Really Killed Our Ability To Deal With Long Things Like Books?
“Maybe we’ve sensed that we rely on physical cues to ground ourselves in complex arguments, and that we get more of those from books than from flickering screens. … And after centuries of vaunting the solidity of written language, there’s a kind of whiplash in signing on and watching our literary output swoosh by. … Yet the Web giveth, even as it taketh away.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 09.09.14
The Death of Art’s Third Place
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-09-09
Elvis Costello at the Hollywood Bowl
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-09-09
Lookback: Our Girl in Chicago on how literary taste evolves with age
AJBlog: About Last Night | Published 2014-09-09
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New York Philharmonic Finally Sets Date For Overhauling Avery Fisher Hall
“The target date to begin the long-delayed renovation of Avery Fisher Hall is now 2019, and the New York Philharmonic is planning a campaign to raise its share of the construction costs and double its endowment, the orchestra disclosed in a recent job listing.” (This time we’ll get the acoustics right, we swear!)
The Ten Most Politically Controversial TV Shows In History
“‘A slanderous farce.’ No, not The Great British Bake Off‘s ‘bincident’, but Pyongyang’s response to Channel 4’s newly announced 10-part drama Opposite Number, about a British scientist captured in North Korea. … It wouldn’t be the first fictional TV show to create a political firestorm …” (includes video clips)
An Elizabethan Playhouse In Poland (Just Like The One There 400 Years Ago)
The creation of the €22.5 million Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre “was inspired by a playhouse built in Gdansk in the 17th century for English Shakespearian actors, and [it] will now host the city’s annual Shakespeare festival.”
A Brief History Of Hold Music (Those Damned Earworms They Play While You’re Waiting For Someone To Answer Your Call)
“Who had the idea that there should be a soundtrack at all? Perhaps surprisingly, given that select late-19th-century audiences in Europe had actually received live opera broadcasts via telephone, the idea of hold music doesn’t seem to appear until fairly late in the 20th century.”
How Do You Rhyme In Sign Language?
“Since rhyme is based on the repetition of portions of words, the portions of words that get repeated don’t necessarily have to be sounds. They could also be movement, hand shape, location, palm orientation, or other components of signs.” (Includes video clips and a bonus: “finger fumblers”, the sign-language equivalent of tongue twisters.)
Egypt’s So-You-Think-You-Can-Belly-Dance Competition Show Cancelled After One Episode
“Egypt’s Dar el-Ifta, a wing of the justice ministry that issues non-binding religious edicts, said Al-Raqisa would destroy the moral structure of the country. Shortly after, producers of the show – hosted by Egypt’s pre-eminent belly-dancing star, Dina – voluntarily announced its suspension.”
Soprano Magda Olivero, 104
“Olivero never had a glitzy recording career, but she did have something her contemporaries didn’t: longevity. She sang in public for more than seven decades.” (includes audio clips)