“In ‘Godzilla Meets Indie Rockers’, a Talk of the Town story from June 24, 1996, [former staffer Andrew] Essex reported that Thomas Pynchon, a notorious hermit, had become a groupie of the nineties New York rock band Lotion. … It was a great story. It was also mostly untrue.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Just What Theatre Needs: A Madonna-In-Malawi Musical
“Every afternoon this month in a converted Edinburgh church half a dozen Malawian dancers wear ‘Adopt me’ T-shirts in Mercy Madonna of Malawi,” Toby Gough’s “reverse Black-and-White minstrel show” at the Fringe. “The ‘Madonna’ whose eye they are trying to catch is a strapping black man in a platinum blonde wig and pink negligee who sings ‘Last night I dreamed of Malawi’ to the tune of the Material Girl’s early hit ‘La Isla Bonita’.”
Tate Modern Staffer Sues Because Space Is Too Chilly
“Elizabeth Andrews, a gallery supervisor, has launched a claim for compensation against the Tate, saying that the cold, among a series of other factors, meant she became increasingly ill and eventually had to go on long-term sick leave.”
Strictly Ballroom? Not Any More. (Not Even Close.)
Alastair Macaulay: “[It’s] time to say that ballroom [dancing] today (at exhibition and competitive levels)” – and in shows like Burn the Floor and Ballroom’s Best – “proposes behavior from both sexes that looks not much like courtship and seduction but something alarmingly close to rape and whorishness. … [A]ll these stunts, acrobatics, point-scoring and flashy displays of sexual availability are what matter. Musicality, phrasing, intimacy and actual sensuousness are what don’t.”
The New Beatles Edition of The Game Rock Band: An Old-School Fan’s Gripe
Allan Kozinn: “I just don’t get the music toy thing. I play an actual guitar, and when I’ve wanted to play a Beatles song I either learned it by listening carefully to the record or, in recent years, I’ve consulted The Beatles Scores … The idea of picking up a plastic guitar-shaped thing … and pressing buttons while a bunch of colored dots scroll down against the backdrop of cartoon Beatles, just doesn’t do it for me.”
Impromptu Synergy: London’s Plinth Hosts Readings From Man Booker Prize Nominees
“Antony Gormley’s fourth plinth project in Trafalgar Square has played host to a man dressed as a giant turd and a woman performing the Time Warp, but today it was subjected to the cream of literary fiction when a photographer took to the heights to read extracts from the 13 books longlisted for this year’s Man Booker prize.”
What Keeps New Audiences From Opera? Price, Says Opera Boss
San Diego Opera general director Ian Campbell: “Price is the greatest obstacle to attendance at opera performances. … It is noticeable that whenever an opera company or orchestra offers inexpensive, subsidized seats to students, they are snapped up. If San Diego Opera had sufficient contributed income to offer all seats at, say, $10 each, we would never have to advertise.”
Do Take That Insult Lying Down
“[P]eople handle anger differently when they’re lying on their backs, compared with sitting upright. University students who heard personal insults while seated exhibited brain activity linked to so-called ‘approach motivation’ – the desire to approach and explore something. This potential urge disappeared when students took their insults lying down, despite their anger remaining.”
NY City Ballet 2010 Winter Season To Feature Full Rep Retrospective
To celebrate its 45 years at Lincoln Center, the company “will present a yearlong retrospective of its repertory … [with] 11 ballets by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins and five full-length ballets, including Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake.” The opening-night gala will feature a new work by Peter Martins to a score by John Adams.
The Ugandan Civil War, Retold In Comics
“Not many monthly comic books come with a glossary, but not many comics are like Unknown Soldier.” The series, published by an imprint of DC Comics, “is about Dr. Lwanga Moses, a Ugandan whose family fled the country for the United States when he was 7. He returns as an adult in 2002 with his wife, Sera, also a physician, hoping to put their medical skills to use in a part of the country that has experienced civil war for 15 years.”