“I’ve always sipped something when writing lyrics, because it’s the words that are difficult. Writing music is hard, too, but you can always just sit at a piano and move your fingers around the keys – even if you’re not writing, you feel like you are. Lyric-writing is all sweat.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Oslo’s Edvard Munch Museum Isn’t Exactly A Showplace
“The 50-year-old building in Oslo that houses thousands of his works is a bit of a dive, looking more like a postwar municipal building than an art gallery.” Plans to renovate the place have dragged on for several years without ever being agreed on or funded.
John Calvin Versus The Hipsters!
Hipster-hatred is really nothing more than the current iteration of an irony-versus-sincerity battle that stretches right back to the Protestant Reformation (and maybe even to Diogenes and Aristotle).
Think Dance Is Elitist? The Director Of Sadler’s Wells Begs To Differ
“People often assume there’s only one form of dance: ballet. In reality we present contemporary, tango, tap, flamenco, streetdance, kathak and many other forms from around the world, and it’s this rich variety that makes dance the most easily accessible, diverse and open of all the arts forms.”
Minnesota Orchestra Musicians Say Board Deliberately Misled Public On Finances
“At a Monday news conference, Tim Zavadil, leader of the musicians’ negotiating team, questioned the board’s ‘hiding large deficits’ during the recession so as not to negatively affect fundraising for a new hall and a bonding request before the Legislature.”
Danny Boyle’s Olympic Ceremony, Nick Hytner Lead Evening Standard Theatre Awards
“The team behind the Olympic opening ceremony, led by director Danny Boyle, was honoured at the Evening Standard theatre awards on Sunday night, winning the second Beyond Theatre award … Elsewhere, it was [National Theatre director] Nicholas Hytner’s night.”
Why Did The Evening Standard Theatre Award Judges Choose The Winners They Did?
Read on – they’ll tell you.
Would Catalonia’s Secession Harm Barcelona’s Extraordinary High Culture?
“[The city’s] sense of itself, its urbanism and its collective spirit, can also be a trap. There’s always the rest of the world to think about. A living culture has always depended on openness, reciprocity and exchange. The almost shocking individuality … of Gaudí’s architecture … was also only possible because of a wider international culture.”
Deborah Raffin, 59, Actress And Audiobook Mogul
She was “a film actress, veteran of television miniseries and entrepreneur whose company, Dove Books-on-Tape, became a major force in the audio book industry.”
Sacked Director Ken Gass To Revive Defunct Canadian Rep Theatre
“Ousted Toronto theatre director Ken Gass has unveiled plans for relaunching his long-dormant Canadian Rep Theatre with productions of plays pulled from the Factory Theatre during a boycott. The Factory Theatre fired Gass last summer in a dispute over renovations to its downtown building.”