“Videos of sweet children dancing is one thing – but watching ever-younger kids attempt an adult art form is questionable.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
What Creativity Researchers Know About Performers
“Three seeming contradictions – energy/rest, extroversion/introversion, and openness/sensitivity – are not separate phenomena but together seem to form the core of the creative performer’s personality.”
Here’s One Way David Mamet Is Like Arthur Miller And Tennessee Williams
“[He] has now had six critical and/or box-office disappointments in a row. So what has happened to Mamet? In one sense, he is indeed carrying on a great tradition: late-period collapse.”
Yoram Kaniuk, 83, Maverick Israeli Writer
A scion of Jewish Palestine’s high-culture aristocracy, a veteran of Israel’s war of independence, a prolific author with an innovative (not to say quirky) prose style, and a provocative commentator on his nation’s social and political issues, Kaniuk struggled for acceptance in literary circles (and a decent income) until a 2010 memoir made him into a national celebrity.
The Dozens Of Deaths Of Yoram Kaniuk
Nicole Krauss: “He used to say that in 1941, he was killed by the Einsatzgruppen in Ternopil, Ukraine, even though he was eleven at the time, and busy eating sour cream on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. When he was seventeen, he volunteered for the Palmach, the strike force of the Haganah, fought bloody battles for Israel’s independence in the Judean hills, was shot in the leg, and died in the arms of a nun who quoted the second century rabbi Ben-Azzai in Germanic Hebrew.”
Trauma Queens: Women Who Love Law & Order: SVU
Emily Nussbaum: “The audience was two-thirds female, young women, for the most part – the same demographic that drives fan fiction, romance novels, and vampire stories. ‘Oh, you enjoy this, do you?’ an angry john says, in the SVU pilot. ‘Is this how you get your rocks off?’ He’s talking to some detectives, but he might as well have been addressing viewers, for whom the show’s pulp appeal was simultaneously addictive and faintly shameful.”
Feds Seize Millions’ Worth Of Allegedly Smuggled Antiquities From Jailed Dealer
“Federal agents have seized an estimated $100 million in art over the last two years from a prominent Manhattan antiquities dealer they describe as one of the most prolific antiquities smugglers in the world. Subhash Kapoor, a 64-year-old American citizen, awaits trial in India, where he is accused of being part of an antiquities smuggling ring that American and Indian investigators say spanned continents.”
Greece Shuts Down Its Public Broadcaster For Reorganization
“The Greek government has shut down the public broadcaster ERT, calling it a ‘haven of waste’. … While all 2,500 employees would be sacked, [said a government spokesman,] they would be paid compensation and would be able to apply for work when the corporation relaunches as a smaller, independent public broadcaster.”
Covent Garden Clash: Royal Ballet Quits Royal Opera Production
“After what the [Royal] Opera House called ‘artistically differing approaches to the project’ between the director Stefan Herheim and choreographer Johan Kobborg, Mr Kobborg has left the production [of Verdi’s Les Vêpres siciliennes], along with 32 dancers from the Royal Ballet, the Royal Ballet School and the Royal Danish Ballet.”
Seattle Revives The Bookmobile – For Bicycles
“A small group of Seattle Public Library (SPL) staff will be pedaling – and peddling – books on the pavement this summer, thanks to the new Books on Bikes pilot program. Librarians on bicycles are traveling to several outdoor events across the city with a custom-built book trailer that can carry 500 pounds of materials and display 75 books at a time.”