Derek Thompson: “TV, as we know it, is cable packages and live channels. But the new players are building an Internet-video experience around apps with very little access to live television. It’s not TV. It’s Internet TV. Even as these tech upstarts are battling each other for living-room dominance, they’re also battling the legacy of traditional television and the sturdy cable bundle.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Bass-Baritone John Shirley-Quirk Dead at 82
The beloved and widely-recorded singer was admired for his Bach and Handel and English art song, but he was best known for his work with Benjamin Britten, who wrote a number of roles for him.
Why I Wrote A Play About Margaret Thatcher
Moira Buffini, playwright of Handbagged: “When she died last year, my children couldn’t believe that people were partying in the street. This poor old lady had been incapacitated with dementia (like their beloved granny). … I tried to explain what it had been like; why people were still so angry. But my words fell over themselves.”
What Makes ‘Happy’ So – Happy?
Two professors, a DJ, and a radio executive explore why Pharrell Williams’s hit has such an effect on so many people.
‘It Sounds Like A Stupid Fairytale’: Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Wishes Come True With Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo
When Princess Caroline invited Maillot to lead Monaco’s ballet company, he says, “I wanted to show the world that this company wasn’t the toy of a princess. I wanted a company that would have its own identity. And I wanted Monaco, so small and so specific, to experience the whole possibility of dance.”
Singers Diana Damrau and Stuart Skelton Take Honors at International Opera Awards
“The event, now in its second year, launched in 2013 and was designed to be the first truly international set of prizes in the operatic world.” The Zurich Opera was named company of the year; the Aldeburgh Festival’s site-specific beach staging of Peter Grimes won a prize for best production of the Britten anniversary year.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.08.14
Beyond repair? On the loss of structural integrity …
AJBlog: Jumper | Published 2014-04-08
Nonprofit costs are driven by revenues
AJBlog: For What it’s Worth | Published 2014-04-08
Political Art, Billboards, New York and Los Angeles
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-04-08
The Talking Cure, Part IV (powerful questioning and attentive listening)
AJBlog: We The Audience | Published 2014-04-08
From Julia Villagra: Wooing my peers (2)
AJBlog: Sandow | Published 2014-04-08
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No Britons Among Finalists For No-Longer-The-Orange Prize
Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah are considered the leading contenders for what is, as of this year, the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. Also in the running are novels by Jhumpa Lahiri, Hannah Kent, Audrey Magee, and Eimear McBride.
‘Doctor Zhivago’ and the CIA
“A secret package arrived at CIA headquarters in January 1958. Inside were two rolls of film from British intelligence – pictures of the pages of a Russian-language novel titled Doctor Zhivago” which had been banned in the USSR. Yes, it seems that The Company was instrumental in getting Boris Pasternak’s Nobel-winning novel into print.
Radio Soap Opera Aims to Help Heal Scars of Rwandan Genocide
“The idea behind Musekeweya, or the New Dawn, is to do the opposite of what the notorious Radio Libre des Mille Collines did 20 years ago as it stoked ethnic hatred during the genocide carried out by Hutu extremists.”