“The dozen or so letters and scraps of free-written scrawl were from Conan Doyle and Houdini’s brief but spectacular relationship, one that was founded on and destroyed by a shared interest in the possibility of contacting people in the afterlife. … Their missives are debates over the nature of Spiritualism, examining the ways that psychics could be snookering their audiences.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
One Year On, How’s David Hallberg Doing At The Bolshoi?
Not badly at all, thanks. “When you dance at the Bolshoi Theatre you really feel the weight of history, and the audiences are very appreciative and knowledgeable because ballet is just in their blood.”
Stand-Up Comics Turn To Web-Only Material
“A handful of top-tier performers” – among them Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari and Jim Gaffigan – “have begun producing stand-up specials on their own, posting them online and selling them directly through their personal Web sites … While this straight-to-the-Internet strategy is far from ubiquitous in stand-up, it is already having a profound impact on the comedy landscape.”
Making Up Edith Wharton (As She Did)
“When Edith Wharton – then Edith Jones – was a little girl, her favorite game was called ‘making up.’ ‘Making up’ involved pacing around with an open book and (before she could read) inventing and then later half reading, half inventing stories about real people, narratives that she would chant very loud and very fast.”
Why It’s Worth It For Some Shows To Lose Money On Broadway
One reason is “the business considerations of modern Broadway: a desire among theater owners to keep their houses booked (even if seats are heavily discounted), and the belief among producers that they can negotiate better deals for road tours of musicals that can still claim to be so-called Broadway hits.”
Boredom, ‘The Besetting Sin’ Of The Arts
“Consider that what all of these – performance, writing, teaching, etc. – have in common is the structure of detachment. Pupils sit and listen to a teacher. Audiences pay to watch and scrutinize, but they must keep quiet and sit in the dark. Visitors to the gallery can look, and think, but not touch. These events are structured by detachment. That’s where they begin. And so, from the very start, they are always on the verge of boredom.”
Tackling The Holocaust On A Ballet Stage
Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project “is constructed in five parts, each of which explores the devastating outcomes of intolerance and discrimination, as revealed through the story of a Holocaust survivor.”
Building The Philippines’ First Science Museum
“During the construction of the Philippines’ first real science museum, curator Maria Isabel García insisted that workers decorate their crane to look like a Tyrannosaurus rex. The country’s largest newspaper ran a front-page picture. The caption: “Dinosaurs at Work!'”
Alcoholism On American TV: A Brief History
“Television saw the comedy in drunkenness long before it saw the tragedy. From Shakespeare’s Falstaff to Mark Twain’s Pap Finn, the ‘town drunk’ has been a source of amuse, ridicule, and scorn for centuries – and the small screen was once no different.” Until, that is, the idea of alcoholism as disease took hold.
The Man Who Saved Sri Lankan Buddhism
“When Henry Steel Olcott came to Sri Lanka [from the US] in the late 19th century, his goal was simply to learn more about the Eastern religions he so admired. But somehow, this Presbyterian-born Spiritualist ended up becoming a Buddhist himself and initiating a revival that would sweep throughout Sri Lanka and the entire Buddhist world.”