“One night, playing between sets at a small club … [with] his eyes closed in reverie, [Katz] did not realize that his bandmates had crept back onstage. The stage was tiny and crowded, and by the time the band swung into an up-tempo number and he realized what had happened, he could no longer get to the piano. So he stayed where he was, cello in hand, and played along – and with that the group had its new sound, and went on to become one of the most popular in jazz.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
The Circular Diagram That Utterly Controls NPR News
“But each show also has a virtual ‘clock,’ a set template, from which the show almost never varies. Every show that broadcasts – or aspires to broadcast – in the public radio system has a clock. [Here] is the All Things Considered broadcast clock, which NPR and stations across the country refer to on a daily basis.”
Can Schools Teach Emotional Skills? Should They?
“It’s like saying that a child doesn’t need to study English because she talks with her parents at home. … A teacher might say, ‘Calm down!’ – but how exactly do you calm down when you’re feeling anxious? Where do you learn the skills to manage those feelings?”
The Perils – And Promises – Of Learning By Memorizing
“Memorization has enjoyed a surge of defenders recently. They argue that memorization exercises the brain and even fuels deep insights. … Certainly, knowledge matters. A head full of facts – even memorized facts – is better than an empty one. But facts enter our heads through many paths – some well-paved, some treacherous. Which ones count as ‘memorization’?”
Check Out The Hall Renovation The Minnesota Orchestra Spent All That Money On
“In the newly remodeled Orchestra Hall, black is the new orange. An auditorium long known for its sea of 1970s orange now has seats and balconies in a near-black color called ‘thundercloud.’ A glassy new lobby is twice the size of the original. … New white-oak floors are used in the auditorium, and the stage floor and the signature acoustical ‘tumbling dice’ remain in place.”
Saul Landau, 77, Documentarian Who Asked “The Most Intrusive Questions”
He was a “determinedly leftist documentary filmmaker and writer whose passion for asking what he called ‘the most intrusive questions’ yielded penetrating cinematic profiles of leaders like Fidel Castro and Salvador Allende.”
If Holden Caulfield Spoke Russian, What Would He Sound Like?
“First introduced to readers during Khrushchev’s thaw, Salinger’s novel became an instant sensation among Soviet readers in the nineteen-sixties, and it has remained a classic.” Yet the canonical Soviet translation and a new 2008 version have wildly different tones – right down to the rendition of the novel’s title.
Remember, People: Holden Caulfield Is Not J.D. Salinger
“Do I have to say the obvious? I feel like I’m telling a child about Santa Claus.” Ron Rosenbaum is both mystified and monumentally irked that so many intelligent people can’t keep this fact in mind.
Harrison Ford Threatened With Deportation From Indonesia
“The Hollywood actor Harrison Ford has been accused of ‘harassing state institutions’ in Indonesia and threatened with deportation after allegedly confronting a minister during an interview about illegal logging and climate change.”
The Louvre Has A Ticket Forgery Problem
“Museum staff last month began noticing that several dozen Chinese tourists with tour groups held counterfeit tickets ‘of a strange consistency, [with] poor paper quality and ink that hadn’t set properly’ … Later in August better-quality forged items began appearing with serial numbers – exact copies of the museum’s entry tickets.”