“Cash’s famous live albums recorded at Folsom Prison and San Quentin are the stuff of music legend … But it’s much less well-known that these were only two of many prison concerts Cash played over the course of almost 30 years … for inmates all over the US, always unpaid, and in the process, [he] became a passionate and vocal spokesman for prisoners’ rights.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
US Federal Agents Seize Funds From Book About Ugandan Warlord
Freelance reporter David Axe and artist Tim Hamilton wrote a graphic novel titled Army of God about the notoriously vicious Joseph Kony. Last month, “the federal office of Foreign Assets Control confiscated the majority of Army of God‘s advance payment, claiming it was being used to fund a terrorist organization.”
Michael Grandage Launches Youth Theatre
“The Futures Company is looking to recruit young people aged 15 to 25 from ‘mixed’ backgrounds wanting to work in theatre as actors, directors, technicians, stage managers and other offstage roles. The company, which is free to join, will meet once a week for a year, and will run alongside the Michael Grandage Company’s West End season.”
How A Hotel Room Changed Matisse’s Art
“In ‘fake, absurd, terrific, delicious’ hotel rooms, ones that turned natural light into theatrical lighting, he found that ‘the richness and the silver clarity of the light of Nice’ had been trapped and condensed, intensified even when gathered in shade, and bounced from wall to wall and ceiling to floor in a kind of dizzying ebullience.”
Jared Diamond Drives Some Anthropologists Nuts
“In his new book, … Diamond questions the practice of psychologists who base their claims about human nature entirely on people from WEIRD – Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic – societies. … So far, this sounds pretty much like an embrace of the cross-cultural diversity that we anthropologists work to understand, even to celebrate. So what’s the backlash all about?”
What Made Wolves Evolve Into Dogs? Carbs
“Comparing the DNA of dogs and wolves shows that dogs’ ability to easily digest carbohydrates, originally from starch in scraps left behind by humans, helped enable their domestication.”
A Real-Life Billy Elliot Of Modern Dance
Stuart Shugg, at 25 the youngest member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company, grew up as the son of a carpenter and a nurse in an isolated Australian town (6 hours from Melbourne, 11 from Sydney).
Australia’s Culture Policy Will ‘Drive Economy’, Says Arts Minister
“If we want to aspire to an innovative, creative, adaptive nation, if we want to keep that ranking that we have got as one of the best performing economies in the world we have to drive creativity. That’s why this has a return, this is not just a spend, it’s an investment in the future.”
Filmmaker Michael Haneke On Catharsis
“I think that catharsis is an overly ambitious term. If a film manages to make spectators as viewers reflective for a few hours, if it manages to make them for a short time nicer to each other, more humane, then you’ve achieved a great deal. Catharsis is too ambitious. I don’t think, in today’s society, you can achieve catharsis with a book – uh, film.”
When A Music Critic Covers Three Months Of John Cage Concerts
David Patrick Stearns: “Sometimes you need to submit to an artistic movement: Shelve as many doubts as possible, set aside questions about enjoyability, and just see what happens. … Often, I was happiest when I didn’t know how long the piece was going to be, making the experience like mountain hiking in dense fog: When you have no idea how close you are to the summit, the lack of anticipation grounds you in the moment.”