“Clamp on headphones, start up the iPhone app by the musical duo Bluebrain and walk into Central Park. The music does not begin until you pass through an entrance and head into the trees. Then it sounds like an orchestra tuning up, a chaotic jumble of wind chimes, electronic moans and discordant strings. Push farther into the park, and a sweet violin melody emerges over languid piano chords.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Kurt Vonnegut’s Son: My Dad Was Not A Bitter Old Coot
“I’m happy to reassure you that Kurt did not die a bitter man who kept thinking he was a failure,” said Mark Vonnegut to science fiction fans in response to a new biography that depicts the author as angry, cynical, and depressive.
Fantasy Fiction Fans Start Cooking The Food They Read About
“In the postapocalyptic fantasy series The Hunger Games, starving characters eat whatever they can kill or forage: wild dog, horse, tree bark, mouse meat. It’s not exactly the kind of story that demands a recipe swap” – let alone a cookbook. But there is one now.
Kevin Spacey Goes All Patti-LuPone On Noisy Audience Members
“Kevin Spacey has won praise for a series of in-character attacks as Richard III on unruly audience members in Sydney, including a cutting rebuke of the owner of a ringing mobile phone.”
Where Are Today’s Angry Young Playwrights?
“How to write about these scoundrel times? WH Auden dubbed the 1940s ‘the age of anxiety’, but it feels a better term for now than then. … Hard times can generate great writing, but they can also freeze the imagination in a rictus of fear.”
The Bad Sex In Fiction Prize 2011 – We Have A Winner!
“An over-reliance on coy terms such as ‘family jewels’, ‘back door’ and ‘front parlour’ has won acclaimed American novelist David Guterson the dubious accolade of the Literary Review‘s bad sex in fiction award.”
TS Eliot Prize Finalist Withdraws Because She Hates Hedge Funds
“Award-winning poet Alice Oswald has pulled out of prestigious poetry award the TS Eliot prize in protest over its sponsorship by an investment company.” Says Oswald, “I think poetry should be questioning not endorsing such institutions.”
What Happens To Pina Bausch’s Company Without Pina?
“She died unexpectedly at 68 in June 2009, five days after being diagnosed with lung cancer.” Unsurprisingly, she had made no plans for her company’s future – an awkward situation now that the troupe is getting unprecedented exposure via Wim Wenders’s 3D documentary.
Did Pinochet Poison Pablo Neruda? Body May Be Exhumed, Autopsied
The Nobel laureate, who was a close associate of Salvador Allende, died 12 days after Gen. Pinochet’s 1973 coup. Officially, the cause was listed as prostate cancer; a subsequent investigation found that the poet had a fatal heart attack. Now a witness claims that Neruda was given a mysterious injection n the day he died, and the calls to dig up and test the body have begun.
Minnesota Orchestra Posts Largest Deficit In Its History
“The shortfall came to $2.9 million on a budget of $30.4 million, for the year ended Aug. 31, breaking a streak of four years of balanced budgets.”