“Ho-ho-ho, hold that flight. There’s a holiday surprise for travelers – and aspiring performers – passing through Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport this month. There it is, just past the security checkpoint, set atop a small stage: a karaoke machine adorned with Christmas lights and stockings shaped like cowboy boots.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Grey Gardens Goes Meta (In A Way)
“Grey Gardens: From East Hampton to Broadway is a documentary about a Broadway musical that is based on a documentary. If that has a certain snake-eating-tail improbability to it, well, the Grey Gardens story of two eccentric former socialites is, in any medium, all about improbability.”
How Robert Venturi Vanquished Modernist Architecture
“Venturi et al. pitted the unruly architecture of Las Vegas (most of it designed by private businessmen) against the logical, doctrinaire architecture of the academic modernists (most of it designed for the public sector) as a way of showing up the latter. What makes Learning from Las Vegas so fascinating is this trick of deploying one kind of crap to discredit another.”
Defending Literary Prizes
“Prizes are an attempt to mould, and to pre-empt, posterity. Their answers rarely satisfy; they seem, sometimes, to possess an astonishing capacity for ignoring talent. Yet they occupy an increasingly crucial, and volatile, position amid those imperfect processes by which writing is turned into literature.”
Hollywood Director Robert Mulligan, 83
Mulligan, who died on Dec. 20 of heart disease, was best known for the movies To Kill a Mockingbird, Up the Down Staircase, Inside Daisy Clover and Summer of ’42.
Philip Seymour Hoffman Hates Acting
“For me, acting is torturous, and it’s torturous because you know it’s a beautiful thing. I was young once, and I said, That’s beautiful and I want that. Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great – well, that’s absolutely torturous.”
The Ten Commandments As Progressive Manifesto
“Through misreadings and mistranslations, the ten commandments have come to be seen as the rantings of a vain and vengeful God. In fact, they are an early blueprint for self-government forged by refugees escaping tyranny.”
Las Vegas Phil President Goes Down Shooting
“The Las Vegas Philharmonic’s controversial board president, Barbara Woollen, has stepped down amid leadership conflicts and financial problems within the organization. Woollen submitted her resignation to the board last week in a fiery e-mail that criticized the board, conductor David Itkin and associate conductor Dick McGee.”
Airline-Style ‘Demand Pricing’ Comes To Arts Venues
“The idea of charging a premium for desirable seats, as Northwest and U.S. Airways do for aisle and exit-row seats, is catching on with symphonies, ballets, operas and theater companies trying to get greater bang for the buck from ticket sales.”
Two Violinists With Moscow Virtuosi Severely Injured In Attacks
“Georgy Tsai, from the Moscow Virtuosi chamber orchestra, was assaulted and robbed in the Russian capital on Sunday evening. Attackers stabbed him in the stomach, slashed his hands and stole his bag near his home. Denis Shulgin, another violinist with the orchestra, suffered a fractured skull after being assaulted the following evening.”