“[Biography] was once thought, as Michael Holroyd called it, ‘the shallow end of history’, unable to provide sufficient context and with a tendency to exaggerate the role of individuals in the passage of time. … Many a biographer still falls in love with his or her subject, making the hope of objectivity even dimmer than for conventional history. And arguably the whole conceit is flawed.” – History Today
Author: Matthew Westphal
How Reese Witherspoon Remade Herself Into A Genuine Multimedia Mogul
“Tired of dreadful scripts and degrading magazine spreads, the Oscar-winning actress, producer, entrepreneur and activist built an empire on her own taste and work ethic. Now she plots projects all over Hollywood and responds to critics of her paychecks: ‘Does it bother people when Kobe Bryant or LeBron James make their contract?'” – The Hollywood Reporter
At The Jacob’s Pillow Gala This Summer, One Patron Was Subjected To Humiliating Racist Treatment By Some Other Patrons. Here’s How The Director Handled It.
“After hearing about this, I couldn’t stay silent. I wrote an op-ed for our regional paper, The Berkshire Eagle, describing how Jacob’s Pillow, like many cultural institutions, is working to create a climate of inclusiveness. ‘We can diversify the artists … we celebrate onstage, the dancers we teach in our school, and the representation of people of color on our board and staff,’ I wrote. ‘What can we do to evolve our audiences so that our institution is truly inclusive?” I invited readers to share their thoughts.” Pamela Tatge writes about what has happened as a result. – Dance Magazine
Arkansas Repertory Theatre Went Dark Last Year. Now It’s Come Back From The Dead.
“The theatre, which has a current operating budget of $4.5 million, stopped producing last year to focus on tackling its [$2.6 million in] debts … As they planned to reopen, … the board focused on three elements that make the Rep ‘sacred,’ and that were a must for future sustainability: being affordable to attract audiences, producing relevant shows, and maintaining professional status [as an Equity house].” – American Theatre
How Reading Has Changed In The 2010s
“For a while we were told that books were going to be a thing of the past. A new century had dawned, our lives were being digitised and surely there was no longer any reason to lug the pressed pulp of dead trees around. And yet, over the past decade, it seems clear that the death of the book has been greatly exaggerated.” – BBC
What Classical And Jazz Concerts Offer That We Need So Badly These Days
Howard Reich: “Step into Orchestra Hall or the Jazz Showcase in Chicago, Carnegie Hall or the Village Vanguard in Manhattan, Palais Garnier or Duc des Lombard in Paris, and you are entering sacred spaces where listeners seek something other than noise and sensation. … This means everyone in the audience must do something that increasingly is becoming a rarity: keep quiet and listen. Our individual voices, our opinions, our fervently held beliefs, our prejudices are not to be voiced here, at least not until concert’s end.” – Chicago Tribune
World’s Oldest Paintings Of Figures — 44,000 Years Old — Discovered In Indonesia
“The 4.5-metre-long panel … seems to depict wild pigs found on Sulawesi and a species of small-bodied buffalo, called an anoa. These appear alongside smaller figures that look human but also have animal traits such as tails and snouts.” – Nature
A ‘Byzantine Pompeii’, Discovered By, And Now Threatened By, Subway Construction
“At stake [in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city,] is not one building or artefact but the entire central junction of the city as it existed in late Roman times: a covered, colonnaded space where carriages once rattled past, and copper-smiths, jewellers and silk-merchants did a roaring trade.” – The Economist
David Bellamy, Naturalist, Television Host, And Environmentalist, Dead At 86
“Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the BBC’s ‘Bouncing Botanist’ was a television regular, leaping over ‘wocky pwotuberwances’, enthusing over ‘twee pherns’ or plunging his hands lovingly into evil-looking sludge to declare it a ‘bweeding gwound for amazing organisms’. … [He] did for botany and ecology what David Attenborough did for biology.” In later life, though, a series of very controversial statements brought him into serious conflict with mainstream environmentalists. – The Telegraph (UK)
A History Of The Toy Piano As Serious Concert Instrument
“Even now, 70+ years since John Cage’s seminal Suite for Toy Piano from 1948, the toy piano still feels like Duchamp’s upside-down urinal (Fountain): out of place on stage, it elicits giggles and scoffs, is the star of the show, and at least promises a memorable experience, musical and otherwise.” Yet now there’s an entire concert repertory for the little contraption. – NewMusicBox