Author: Matthew Westphal

Well, At Least Somebody Likes Brutalism

“The name Brutalism – from the French béton brut, the raw concrete used by Le Corbusier and favored by modernists – is more commonly used today as a term of opprobrium by a public that profoundly dislikes the style’s rough textures and powerful forms,” says Ada Louise Huxtable. She considers two Brutalist landmarks: Yale’s Paul Rudolph Building, now restored, and Boston’s City Hall, merely reviled.

How Do You Distinguish Your Orchestra In A City With Eight Of Them?

Conductor Lothar Zagrosek: “[T]his building we are in is our great asset. That is why the first thing I did when I arrived was to the change the name. Before, we were the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, so we were the BSO in a city which already had a DSO and DOO and heaven knows what. Now we are the ‘Concert House Orchestra’, so we are identified with our home, like the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam or the Tonhälle in Zurich.”

Remember When? The Web In 1996

“People still refer to the new medium by its full name – the World Wide Web – and although you sometimes find interesting stuff here, you’re constantly struck by how little there is to do. You rarely linger on the Web; your computer takes about 30 seconds to load each page, and, hey, you’re paying for the Internet by the hour. Plus, you’re tying up the phone line.”

Why Not Just Get A Real Piano?

Yamaha’s $20,000 Avant Grand digital piano “is a ‘hybrid,’ designed to perfectly mimic the touch of an acoustic piano. The Avant Grand not only uses the same key, level, and hammer mechanism of an acoustic piano, but also special embedded speakers recreate the feel of an acoustic piano’s keys to the player’s hands.” (And it never needs tuning.)

Detroit Institute Of Arts Lays Off 20 Percent Of Staff

“The cuts come as part of an effort by the DIA to trim $6 million from its $34-million annual operating budget. The layoffs involve 56 full-time employees and seven part-time workers and come from departments including curatorial, conservation, learning and interpretation, building operations, communications and marketing and accounting.”

Christopher Nolan, Prize-Winning Author And Quadriplegic, Dead At 43

“Unable to talk, walk or use his hands, he was confined to a wheelchair – but his intellect was unimpaired. He wrote by using a special keyboard; to help him type, his mother often held his head in her cupped hands while he painstakingly picked out each word, letter by letter, with the aid of a rod, or ‘unicorn stick’, attached to a headband which allowed him slowly to tap out words on a typewriter.”