This year’s Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, India was more than just a religious festival. It was the world’s biggest-ever pop-up city, with a population ranging (depending on the day) from 3 million or so to more than 20 million. And it was far cleaner, better organized, and more functional than India’s permanent cities.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Funding Estonian Culture By Taxing Finns’ Vices
Estonia is a major destination for Finns looking to gamble or hunting for bargains on booze and tobacco. Taxes on those activities provide the revenue for the Estonian Cultural Capital Fund. “Some 29 percent of the fund’s grant money was allocated to sports last year, with composers taking the biggest cultural funding and literature around 6 percent.”
Patrick Stewart Conquers The Internet – As A Comedian
He puts out a steady stream of entertaining tweets – often selfies taken with food – that get him lots of online love, and a new YouTube video in which he teaches us the secret of the quadruple-take is headed toward half a million views.
Don’t Call His Novels “Hillbilly Noir”
Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter’s Bone: “I guess I’m going to need a new hyphenate here, maybe ‘Semi-Southern’ or ‘Kinda Gothic’. … Most of my characters aren’t hillbillies anyway. Let’s just call them proletariat with a disposition towards criminal activity.”
I Hate That You’re Turning My Movie Into A Broadway Show, Even Though I Sold You The Rights
Jean-Pierre Jeunet, director of Amélie, who says he sold the rights to aid a cardiac charity: “I hate Broadway. I think it is the very incarnation of tackiness … I can tell you that I will not go to see it, I don’t even want to hear about it, I won’t listen to what they do, but if it brings in some money, well maybe I can save a few lives, and that’s the only reason I accepted.”
Looters Steal 18th-Century Artworks From Colonial-Era Church In Andes – Again
“Thieves have again stolen treasures from a colonial-era church in Bolivia, including priceless 18th century oil paintings. The Roman Catholic church in the small town of San Miguel de Tomave has been looted three times in the last five years – and it’s not the only one.”
Al Jazeera America Debuts, And The Republic Survives
Lawrence Pintak finds that the news network hardly offered the “inflammatory programming” some conservative groups warned of. “Think NPR with pictures (and a little political baggage). The reporting was solid, the few ‘expert’ guests really were experts, interviews were, for the most part, intelligent, and the rundowns were a predictable mixture of the top stories of the day. ”
Nashville Symphony Musicians Accept 15% Pay Cut
The one-year deal “takes effect immediately and will expire on July 31, 2014. The musicians’ pay cuts are in line with recent pay cuts given to the orchestra’s top leadership, including CEO Alan Valentine and music director Giancarlo Guerrero.”
Linda Ronstadt Stricken With Parkinson’s Disease
“So I can’t sing at all. In fact I couldn’t sing for the last five or six years I appeared on stage, but I kept trying. I kept thinking, ‘What if I tried singing upside down? Or standing on my head? Or while juggling? [Laughs] Maybe I’d be able to sing better then. So I didn’t know why I couldn’t sing – all I knew was that it was muscular, or mechanical.”
The Great Persian National Epic, Reimagined For 2013
The Shahnameh, newly translated into English as The Epic of the Persian Kings, has received a lavish new printing with hundreds of illustrations digitally assembled from the famous miniature paintings that adorned medieval Iranian and Middle Eastern manuscripts.