“I have no idea how I got involved with all these things – Sesame Street, Saturday Night Live, Star Wars, The Muppet Show … I never had any intention of being a professional puppeteer. I’d become interested in it because it was a hobby of my parents.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Here Be Dragons: A Brief History Of Monsters On Maps
Ken Jennings: “In the early days of mapmaking, the seas were full of monsters. Close to port or in well-explored shipping lanes, stout frigates and galleons were depicted in full sail, but farther out, a remarkable diversity of sea serpents and other bizarre creatures ploughed the waves.”
Roanoke’s Struggling Museum Turns To Roadside Art
“Mark Cline’s fiberglass sculptures of giant ticks and man-eating dinosaurs are the sort of fare that a $66 million art museum would normally keep at arm’s length. But curators at the Taubman Museum of Art have approached Mr. Cline about showcasing some of his unconventional works.”
Harvard Students Asked To Take Kindness Pledge
“What could possibly be wrong with asking Harvard students to be nice to one another? This year, freshmen are being asked to make the following pledge: ‘As we begin at Harvard, we commit to upholding the values of the College and to making the entryway and Yard a place where all can thrive and where the exercise of kindness holds a place on a par with intellectual attainment’.”
Calls For Dutch Royals To Get Rid Of ‘Offensive’ Painting
“Critics urged the Dutch royal family Friday to get rid of a painting they say is an offensive reminder of wrongs from the Netherlands’ colonial past, but the Royal House defended the 19th-century work as an important part of the country’s history. Homage of the Colonies … depicts half-naked, brown-skinned women and men in servile poses bearing gifts to an enthroned white woman.”
A MacArthur-Style ‘Genius Grant’ For Playwrights
This initiative by New York’s Signature Theater Company “guarantees three full productions of new plays by five early to mid-career playwrights, who will also receive ‘a significant cash award, full health benefits, a stipend to attend theater’ and full access to the theater’s staff and resources.”
ABT Star Defecting To Bolshoi Ballet
“David Hallberg, a principal dancer with American Ballet Theater, is becoming the first American star to enlist permanently with the fabled Bolshoi Ballet of Moscow.”
Ruth Wheeler, 93, Pioneer In Boston’s Modern Dance Scene
“Scientific American is not high on the list of potential source material for choreographers, but the magazine inspired Ruth Wheeler … who cofounded Dance Collective, Boston’s longest-running modern dance troupe … to create dances that dazzled audiences around Boston for years.”
Beethoven Against Bombs: The National Youth Orchestra Of Iraq
The ensemble, “created on the lines of Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim’s Arab-Jewish West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, and comprising Kurds, Arabs, Shiites, Sunnis and Christians, … [is trying to] help to unite a divided country living in the shadow of violence and terror.”
Would Nurturing Western Classical Music Be Good For India?
Columnist Anil Dharker: “[If] any art form struggles to survive in our country, it is western classical music. … Sometimes you wonder if western classical music has survived all these years only because Parsis live so long. … But there is an even more basic reason why soaking in western classical music might do us good, and this has to do with the very structure of their music and ours.”