“Touting an intoxicating blend of Woodstock and Bollywood, the gatherings” – Holi parties, complete with colored powders to throw at your friends – can draw more than 10,000 people. But all that amity and togetherness has sparked a fight between the leading commercial Holi festival organizers. While revelers cavort in colorful joy, their hosts are dickering over profits, festival names and even the ingredients of the powders they sell.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
UK National Theatre’s Next Director Must Not Be Hytner-Lite
“Running the National Theatre famously drove him to thoughts of suicide, but Richard Eyre has said that the theatre’s next artistic director has a harder task than most, namely to ‘redefine the function and practice’ of the venue.”
With Vänskä Gone, What Next For Minnesota Orchestra?
“Representatives of the board and musicians said no new talks are scheduled. Musicians prepared to stage their own concerts this weekend, which would have been the orchestra’s season opener.” Board chairman Jon Campbell “said it is far too early for the board to consider drastic steps in reshaping the orchestra, such as hiring temporary replacement musicians.”
What Tony Kushner Thinks About The Insanity In Washington
“The country has had practically 40 years now of Reaganism. That’s going to take a while to turn away from. It’s still very hard to talk, in ways that make sense, about what government is in a democratic society. … There are many flaws in the machinery. But the machinery is worth having faith in. ‘worth working toward a better and better functioning of it.”
How The Oddsmakers Handicap The Literature Nobels
“The odds list is released each summer after research by a group of specialists, said Alex Donohue, a Ladbrokes spokesman. Sadly, that research does not include holing up in a back office and reading hundreds of great works of international literature.”
Will Zaha Hadid Be Designing a Museum In Baghdad? No One Will Say
“The Iraqi Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Liwa Sumaism, has said that his government plans to build a new museum in west Baghdad that will house objects currently in the collection of the Iraq National Museum. The Iraqi government has reportedly invited the Iraqi-born, British architect Zaha Hadid to submit designs for the project; a spokeswoman for Hadid says that she is ‘unable to confirm or comment’ on the project.”
Hey, Why Not Sell Off Detroit’s Art And Replace It With Copies? Who Could Tell?
In what must be a parody of Slate-style contrarianism, Slate founder Michael Kinsley allows as how “the city of Detroit is not breaking new ground in facing the prospect of having to sell a few paintings from the Detroit Institute of Arts in order to make ends meet. There is a rich tradition of wastrels squandering the family fortune, then taking a few canvases to the pawnbroker’s.”
Why That Rose Does Not Smell As Sweet When You’re Upset
“It’s no secret that smell is intimately tied up with emotions, and things like real estate agents baking cookies in houses they show is an attempt to have the warm feeling produced by that fragrance transfer to the property. … What we’re learning is how physically tied up the two systems – the one that rules emotions and the one that rules smells – are.”
BAFTA Opens Awards To Web-Only Productions
“BAFTA has changed the rules for its television awards in a move that will allow web-based broadcasters such as Netflix to enter for the first time.”
The 19th-Century Writer Behind Jonathan Franzen’s Internet Skepticism
“His new book translates works by Karl Kraus, whose misgivings toward technology mirror Franzen’s own.”