Andrew Druckenbrod: “At the end of this month, I will leave the beat to finish an MBA and to consult in the nonprofit sector. … I will occasionally appear as a freelancer (including for several concerts in fall).”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Ai Weiwei’s First Rock Album Has Arrived
“The visual artist-cum-media juggernaut known as Ai Weiwei hurtles forward with the release of his new album, The Divine Comedy. The six-track album, released Saturday, is Ai’s first major attempt at pop music and features the heavy-metal single ‘Dumbass’, which was first released last month.”
Why Did Ralph Ellison Never Publish A Follow-Up To Invisible Man?
“One of the great mysteries of 20th-century literary history is why Ralph Ellison never completed the highly anticipated second novel that he worked on for four decades after Invisible Man was published to wide acclaim in 1952.” Paul Devlin has a theory. (It’s all Norman Mailer’s fault.)
City Of New York Bills Shakespeare In The Parking Lot For Parking Spaces
“For the last 17 summers it has been one of New York’s more offbeat free diversions: … a troupe of actors on a shoestring budget perform Hamlet, Macbeth and other classics in a municipal lot on the Lower East Side.” Beginning this year, due to a rule change, the city’s Transportation Dept. is asking the company to pay the usual parking fees for the empty spaces they use.
A Plan To Restore Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza
“Designated a landmark in 1974 and considered by many to be one of the most formal public spaces in the city, the plaza has nonetheless fallen into disrepair – its bluestone surface cracked, the gilded statue of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman eroded. Now the Central Park Conservancy is proposing a $2 million restoration of the plaza’s trees and pavement.”
Forget Cocaine – Cali, Colombia Is Now A Latin Dance Mecca
Serious students of salsa are flocking from all over to a city once known mostly for a cartel of international drug kingpins. “And even though the music and dance didn’t originate in Cali, this city of 4 million has become a hotbed and leader in the form, a fact well known to aficionados.”
Meet The Hip-Hop Business’s Top Sign-Language Interpreter
She’s a skinny white girl from Maine named Holly Maniatty, she’s signed concerts for acts from the Wu-Tang Clan and Killer Mike to U2 and Bruce Springsteen, and she can keep up with any freestyling a rapper might throw at her.
Royal Shakespeare Company To Tweet Voltaire’s Candide
“The 140-character messages will begin this Wednesday, continuing until August 29, when Mark Ravenhill’s play – also called Candide – receives its premiere at the RSC’s Swan theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.”
Exploring Duct Tape As Artistic Medium And Inspiration
“In recent years, … devotees craft everything from prom dresses to runway fashions to boutique items like wallets, purses and jewelry. Here in Avon, a town of almost 22,000 outside Cleveland that bills itself as ‘The Duct Tape Capital of the World,’ things go a bit further, with an annual three-day celebration of the stuff.”
The Backlash Against Crowdfunding Kick(start)s In
“Campaigners are free to scour their backer lists to see which uncle went cheap, which best friend ‘forgot’ to contribute and which former co-worker turned out to be surprisingly generous.” Then there’s the rise of crowdfunding consultants and the unedifying phenomenon of wealthy film and rock stars asking their fans for seed money.