“Belgium-based Yuzuko Horigome was transiting through Frankfurt Airport last week after performing in Japan … When she tried to walk through the green gate for travellers arriving in the EU with nothing to declare, customs officers stopped her and said she needed to pay 190,000 euros in duty on her 1741 Guarnerius violin.” (They’re now demanding an additional 100% fine.)
Author: Matthew Westphal
Photographer Martine Franck, 74
The second wife of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Franck was a highly respected photojournalist in her own right and associated with Magnum Photos for 32 years.
Shakespeare’s Coded Jibes At Marlowe’s Murder
“In As You Like It, … he introduces an explosive subject: the murder of his great contemporary, Christopher Marlowe. The references are coded, but would have been easily understood by clued-in playgoers.”
Frank Gehry In Tropical Colors: Biomuseo Tries To Bring Bilbao Effect To Panama City
“Asymmetrically protruding, squiggling, and contorting canopies overlap like pieces of tinted cellophane, corrugated cardboard, and construction paper, catching the eyes of visitors arriving to the city by cruise ship.”
Phyllis Diller Was Underrated
Jason Zinoman: “[She] was long seen as slightly old-fashioned, her self-deprecating one-liners out of step during the brash comedy revolution and boom of the 1970s and ’80s. Stand-up comedy, however, is about form as much as content. … She was not playing a retiring, apologetic wallflower. She dished out insults to her fictional husband, Fang, the same way that borscht belt comics mocked their wives.”
Construction Begins On $140M Overhaul Of Charleston’s Flagship Arts Venue
The Gaillard Municipal Auditorium, a mid-1960s concrete hulk whose 2,700-seat hall offered barren acoustics and poor sightlines, will be transformed into an 1,800-seat horseshoe-style hall with updated amenities and an exterior that blends better with the city’s historic architecture.
Zaha Hadid’s Beautiful Tribute To Structural Engineering
Her installation at the Venice Biennale will be “Arum Shell, a tensile steel structure that looks like a mass of the flower from which it gets its name. The algorithmic basis of the structure pays homage to [engineer Frei] Otto’s skill in calculating structural stresses.”
A School Teaches Stand-Up Comedians How To Tell Clean Jokes
“Aspiring stand-up comedians often think that making people laugh requires a foul mouth. Could be, but most of them won’t earn a cent at it if they can’t clean up their acts.” So Jeff Lawrence – “a fortyish, gay Jewish comic who hasn’t quite sworn off swearing himself” – is running a school called Laughing Buddha to teach comedians how not to work blue.
Vowel Movement: How The Great Lakes’ Cities Are Changing The Sound Of American English
“But American linguistic diversity as a whole isn’t dying – it’s thriving. … From Syracuse, N.Y., in the east to Milwaukee in the west, 34 million Americans are revolutionizing the sound of English.”
Rage Against The Machine Vs. Pussy Riot: Why Protest Songs By Themselves Aren’t Enough
“The politically important stuff about music isn’t the ‘content’ of the lyrics; it’s the symbolic gestures made by the people performing them. In fact, the lyrics matter so little that Paul Ryan can enjoy songs [by Rage Against the Machine] about American foreign policy that are diametrically opposed to his belief in American exceptionalism.”