“From music to movies and late-night TV, earnestness seems to be everywhere in pop culture right now.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Author And Environmentalist Farley Mowat, 92
“Mowat, author of dozens of works including Lost in the Barrens and Never Cry Wolf, introduced Canada to readers around the world and shared everything from his time abroad during the Second World War, to his travels in the North and his concern for the deteriorating environment. More than 17 million copies of his books … have been sold worldwide.”
George Christie, Longtime Chief Of Glyndebourne Festival, Dead At 80
“Having assumed responsibility for Glyndebourne while still in his twenties (several years before his father’s death in 1962), Christie transformed it from an exclusive summer pursuit into a year-round business and a force on the international opera scene. And he did so, without a penny of taxpayers’ money for the festival.”
When Neuropsychology Meets Urban Design
Columbia University’s Cloud Lab and a company called NeuroSky have been fitting out volunteers with brain-scanner headsets and having them walk around Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood; the headsets record second-by-second brain scans of the wearers’ responses to the cityscape. Is this science? (For now, they’re claiming it’s art.)
YES! Boulder Rises Up Against Bad Public Art
A piece commissioned from Miami-based R & R Studios, meant for the front of the main branch of the city’s public library, consists entirely of the word Y E S ! in bright red capital letters. “But this week, facing an onslaught of criticism, City Manager Jane Brautigam said the wheels of Boulder’s bureaucracy had spun a little too quickly.”
Gut Reaction: Book Celebrating Digestive Tract Is Bestseller In Germany
“Darm mit Charme (‘Charming Bowels’) – which has sat atop the German paperback charts for the last eight weeks and shifted more than 200,000 copies in the process – may deal with defecation, constipation and other bowel movements, but its message is far from flippant: our gastrointestinal tract is not only the body’s most under-appreciated organ, but ‘the brain’s most important adviser’.”
William Forsythe Joins USC’s New Dance School
The USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance is bringing on internationally renowned choreographer William Forsythe to join the faculty as a professor in fall 2015 – just in time to greet the new school’s first batch of BFA dance majors.
In Defense Of ‘Star Wars’ (Yeah, It’s Not Great Art, But It Is History)
“In some ways, it did suck. The dialogue was awful, the acting was mediocre at best …, and there are some glaring plot holes. We can debate whether its ultimate influence was positive or malign, but even with its weaknesses, the film’s success, and its persistence, were no accident.”
Is This The World’s First Cyborg Artist?
“‘I can have phone calls to my head,’ says Neil Harbisson, sitting across the table from me. Dangling over his forehead is an antenna that curves up and over from the back of his skull. The device, which he calls an ‘eyeborg’, was recently upgraded, meaning his skull is now Bluetooth-enabled.”
Yes, These Are Tibetan Monks Break-Dancing
“This happened, people. You don’t need any more information.” But GlobalPost provides some nevertheless, along with video.