“What do we feel here that is so unique? It may be the shock that nothing about these sites has any intrinsic significance… Stand in the box where [Lincoln] was shot and you imagine not a battle of mythic forces, but gestures by human-size figures whose actions still ominously resonate. The places become sacred because they refuse to appear sacred.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
The Ballets Russes-ian Revolution, 100 Years On
From its first performances in 1909, Serge Diaghilev’s path-breaking company “was giving audiences three Gesamtkunstwerks an evening, and with a quality of movement that no Wagnerian opera had ever known… Ballet became innovatively sexy, astoundingly picturesque, dramatically challenging.” But in a new century, are Diaghilev’s productions still compelling? Can they be?
The (Partheno)Genesis Of A TV Series
Where did Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog) get the idea for his new series, Dollhouse? “At lunch… we were sort of talking about the kind of show [star Eliza Dushku] ought to do… and then lo and behold the show just sort of popped up and started barking at me.'”
Hans Beck, 79, Inventor Of Playmobil Figures
“He developed the original simple plastic figures – a knight, a construction worker and a Native American – partly as a reaction to the early 1970s oil crisis. Since plastic is made from oil, it became too expensive to make the large plastic toys that his employer, the Brandstatter Group, was known for.”
A Messiah For Godless Secular Humanists?
Richard Einhorn – the composer of Voices of Light, the popular work inspired by Dreyer’s silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc – has written a new a multimedia oratorio titled The Origin, with texts selected from On the Origin of Species as well as Charles Darwin’s autobiography, letters and notebooks.
Stone-Age Music (No, We Don’t Mean The Sex Pistols)
“A musical experience with a difference is being previewed at the National Museum Wales in Cardiff – an attempt to recreate the sound of the Neanderthals.”
Olga Raggio, 82, Longtime Met Curator
She was “an internationally known scholar and curator who in almost 60 years with the Metropolitan Museum of Art organized some of its best-known exhibitions, scoured the world for treasure and coaxed rarely seen artworks from places as far flung as the Vatican and as close at hand as a New Jersey abbey.” She retired only at the end of 2008.
Did Abolitionism Lead To Evolutionism?
“Although he never admitted publicly to so political a motivation,” because of what he witnessed aboard the Beagle, “anti-slavery sentiment was the handmaiden of Charles Darwin’s great intellectual achievement – the theory of evolution.”
The Stock Market Collapse Gets Its Own Jingle
Experimental composer Johannes Kreidler took the (depressing) data from the Dow, Nikkei and Nasdaq and the (plunging) stock prices of Bank of America, Warner Music Group and the like,fed them into Microsoft’s new SongSmith program, added rhythm tracks like foxtrot and samba, and presto! – a (happy) tune for the times. It’s now a YouTube hit.
Brandeis President Apologizes For Handling Of Rose Museum Affair
In a letter published in The Boston Globe, Jehuda Reinharz writes, “[my] statements gave the misleading impression that we were selling the entire collection immediately, which is not true.” He says “The Museum will remain open, but… it will be more fully integrated into the University’s central educational mission” and that some artworks may be sold “if necessary.”