“The [Marcel Duchamp] diorama known by its abbreviated French title Étant donnés is spectacularly bizarre, enigmatic, mysterious, disturbing, captivating, and, perhaps to some observers, repellent. None of those attributes is obvious, because Étant donnés is also as secluded as a cloistered nun.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
This Is Just Too Meta: Fahrenheit 451 Is Now A Comic Book
“Think back to the original novel. Comic books are the only books shallow enough to go unburned, the only ones people are still allowed to read. … Surely this [graphic novel edition of Fahrenheit 451] is black humor, a resigned joke about the imminent eclipse of books on paper by images, both digital and analog. Except that it isn’t.”
A Concert Hall With ‘More Curves Than A Vintage Pin-Up Magazine’
Inside the new Koerner Hall at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, curves “ripple along the walls, bulge out beside the stage, and run riot across the ceiling. They do a lot to animate the look of what is essentially a high rectangular box, but how they look counts for less than how they sound.”
The Ever-Blurrier Boundaries Between Opera And Musical Theater (Do They Matter?)
With works like Caroline, or Change, Sweeney Todd and Les Misérables, mostly through-sung but written in a Broadway-ish idiom,”does the old-school definition of opera as ‘drama set to music’ require a fresh look?” Composer Ricky Ian Gordon, who writes in both genres, says, “The lines have become blurred. I feel like both forms are mutating.” But could a theater market, say, Caroline, or Change as an opera?
Kurt Weill Songs, Irish Jigs, And Why The Robot Wants Cheese: All Explored On A ‘Sublime Animated Series’
“An absurdist sensibility drives The Backyardigans, which chronicles the derring-do of five chewy-looking swashbucklers – Tyrone, Tasha, Pablo, Austin and Uniqua – in a range of David Hockney hues. With each episode devoted not just to a separate quest but also to a different musical genre – 80 so far, including Irish jig, King Oliver jazz, funk, bossa nova, township jive, Kenyan high life, tarantella, psychedelic soul, countrypolitan – the show blows you away with its artistic exactitude.”
A Pair Of Musical White Elephants Emerge From Their Stables
“Every great composer has a white elephant – a piece as grand as it is unsuccessful, a flop that only genius can create, and all the more embarrassing for that. Adventurers like Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, whose output is marked by an almost compulsive search for new ground, were fated to have at least one. Bernstein’s was the gargantuan 1971 Mass … Sondheim’s case stretched over 15 years with a musical whose titles ranged from Wise Guys to Bounce to Gold! until finally becoming Road Show late last year.”
Quentin Tarantino Says He’ll Give Up Moviemaking For Writing Novels (In 14 Years)
The auteur of ultraviolence “can now see the day when he’ll lay down his blood-splattered camera and begin a new career as a novelist. That day will be March 27, 2023, his 60th birthday.” Tarantino says, “I don’t really want to make ‘old men’ movies. I don’t want to be worried about making my day and getting up and going through all the stuff to make movies. … When I’m 60 will be my time to be a man of letters.”
Defunct Subway Station Becomes Elaborate Interactive Artwork (For A Day)
“Artist Justin Broadbent’s installation transformed the hidden lower Bay and Bloor subway station [in Toronto]” into “an interactive dreamscape.” Visitors found “vending machines distributing love letters, indoor forests where predator and pray live in harmony together and classical ballrooms” built into subway cars.
A Mathematical Model For Surviving A Zombie Attack (Oh Yes, They Did It)
“Oh yes, somebody actually did a study on mathematics of a hypothetical zombie attack, and published it in a book on infectious disease. … ‘Clearly, this is an unlikely scenario if taken literally,’ they wrote. ‘But possible real-life applications may include allegiance to political parties, or diseases with a dormant infection.’ Right.”
State Of Michigan Closes Landmark Metro Detroit Jazz Venue
“Ann Arbor’s Firefly Club, a beacon for live jazz for nearly a decade and regarded by aficionados as metro Detroit’s finest all-around jazz club, has been closed and its property seized by the Michigan Department of Treasury due to a delinquent sales tax bill.”