“Mr. Abramov’s people are ordinary-looking middle-aged Russian women in cloth coats, and their expressions are all business. They assemble on the stairs, and as the first curtain approaches, they break up into formations, like synchronized swimmers, and vanish into the stream of people heading to their seats. … [Abramov’s] job is to engineer applause and ovations, on the basis of secret agreements with dancers, using associates planted in the audience.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Collecting Oral Histories Of The India-Pakistan Partition
Since it launched in California two years ago, the 1947 Partition Project and “its dozens of volunteers have video-recorded 647 oral histories from more than seven countries and stored them digitally. It describes itself as ‘a people’s history’ of that wrenching time.”
Hedge Fund Mogul Buys Steinway & Sons For $512 Million
“John A. Paulson, the hedge fund billionaire, already owns three Steinway & Sons pianos; the medium model M grand, the larger model O and the nearly seven-foot-long model B, together worth tens of thousands of dollars. But Mr. Paulson, in investing parlance, was looking to increase his exposure.”
Salman Rushdie Speaks Out Against Today’s “Culture Of Offendedness”
“Classically, we have defined ourselves by the things we love. By the place which is our home, by our family, by our friends. But in this age we’re asked to define ourselves by hate. That what defines you is what pisses you off. And if nothing pisses you off, who are you?”
There’s A Play (Already!) About Russia’s Anti-Gay Laws And The Sochi Olympics
“The King’s Head theatre in Islington has commissioned verbatim playwright Tess Berry-Hart to create a play examining the law – which has made it illegal to give under-18s information about homosexuality in Russia – as well as its implications and consequences.” The piece, titled Sochi 2014, premieres Sept. 1 and 2.
Art Blogs Stage A “Day For Detroit”
“The premise is simple and elegant: Use the Internet to a) spread the word to a diverse, international art audience about what could be lost if any sale goes forward; b) suggest that readers expand the process by posting their own links and images to social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram; and c) generate support for the Detroit Institute of Arts by asking readers to click through and buy a museum membership (an individual membership starts at $65).”
Words And The Visual Subconscious
“It’s a case of hear no object, see no object. Hearing the name of an object appears to influence whether or not we see it, suggesting that hearing and vision might be even more intertwined than previously thought.”
Mexican Youths, Despite Macho Culture, Turn To Studying Ballet
“In a country well known for its deeply-ingrained machismo, a group of pioneering young male ballet dancers have been tackling the country’s traditional values as they learn to dance. Ivonne Robles Gil has played a major role in breaking down ingrained ideas about traditional male roles by training more than 50 young men in classical dance.”
Quantifying The Gulf Between Movie Critics And The Public
Catherine Rampell, an economics columnist who doubles as a critic, crunches data from Rotten Tomatoes.
Vivien Leigh’s Archives Go To Victoria & Albert Museum
The collection “includes diaries, scrap books, heavily annotated scripts, photographs including hundreds of rare early colour photographs she took herself while on tour, and thousands of letters to an extraordinarily wide circle of friends and acquaintances including the Queen Mother, Graham Greene, and Winston Churchill” (not to mention husband Laurence Olivier).