“Before each performance Carol Isaac climbs into her little box from the orchestra pit and raises her seat just enough to be seen by the singers but not the audience.” It’s tight quarters in there, especially for a six-hour Wagner opera. But she and her seven colleagues in the job at the Met love the work. And the singers love them. (includes video) – NY1 (New York City)
Author: Matthew Westphal
Nurit Karlin, 80, The New Yorker’s Master Of The Wordless Cartoon
“[She] drew whimsical but thoughtful cartoons: an office worker sitting in what is actually one of his desk’s drawers; a lumberjack peering at a heart pierced by an arrow carved inside the rings of a felled tree; a harpist taking his bows on a concert stage with the strings of his instrument dangling from one hand.” And a favorite: two doves fighting over an olive branch. – The New York Times
Americans Are Finally Reading More Translated Translation — Aren’t They?
Yes, there are some literary stars here whose books come to U.S. readers in translation — Karl Ove Knausgaard, Stieg Larsson, Elena Ferrante — but the number of books published in English that were originally written in another language has held steady at around 3% of the total for many years. Chad Post, founder of the publishing house Open Letter, which specializes in translated lit, writes about the interlocking issues behind “the 3 percent problem.” – Vulture
What’s The Deal With America’s Fondness For Endless Adolescence? Blame Mark Twain
Tom Carson: “Most of the Americans entranced by the fib that everything after high school is a fall from grace undoubtedly have no idea where it originated, but the Clearasil staining Mark Twain’s hands can never be wholly scrubbed away.” – The Baffler
This Guy’s Getting All Avant-Garde Hipster-y With The Renaissance’s Most Genteel Instrument
“Although Renaissance and Baroque repertoire remains his lodestar, [Liam] Byrne has taken the music — and audiences — to surprising places. In 2015, he squeezed into the belly of a plaster sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum and performed for one person at a time, Marina Abramović-style. Two years later, he participated in a site-specific reworking of Schumann’s song cycle Dichterliebe, holing up in the kitchen of a historic house with the performer Mara Carlyle, who sang and played the musical saw.” – The New York Times
Video Game Players Have An Endless Thirst For Updates, And The Pressure Is Driving Developers To The Breaking Point
For years it’s been known that the makers of top video games would make employees work 90-hour weeks or more, with no extra pay, at the crunch time before a title’s release. But now crunch time never ends. – PC Gamer
Prof. Chuck Kinder, Inspiration For Michael Chabon’s ‘Wonder Boys’, Dead At 76
“For years, Mr. Kinder led the creative writing program at the University of Pittsburgh, where he became renowned for his generosity as a teacher and as a [party] host” as well as for a huge novel he just couldn’t finish. “Chabon, who was Mr. Kinder’s student in the 1980s, used him as the model for Grady Tripp, the narrator and central figure of the 1995 novel Wonder Boys.” – The Washington Post
She Had Vertebrae Fused At Age 3. Now She’s A Lead Dancer At Atlanta Ballet
Emily Carrico was diagnosed with slippage of the vertebrae when she was still a toddler; she had two lower vertebrae fused with the sacrum. Then she spent months in a cast, a year in rehab, and then, amazingly, started ballet classes. Here’s a look at how she keeps dancing and what her artistic director, Gennadi Nedvigin, has to say about her. – Dance Magazine
Florida Man Returns Piece Of Stonehenge He Stole 60 Years Ago
The culprit was one Robert Phillips, an Englishman who had been a worker on a project to repair and stabilize one of the large stone arches at the site in 1958. He took a cylindrical core that had been drilled out of one of the stones and kept it with him everywhere he subsequently lived, including his Florida retirement home. – The Guardian
Philadelphia Begins Pilot Cultural Pass Program For Employees Of Two Major Local Institutions
“The Philadelphia Cultural Pass will provide free tickets to any of the roughly 40,000 Penn Medicine and 6,800 Drexel [University] employees working full-time or more than half-time. … At the moment the supporting institutions are Penn Medicine and Drexel, which will provide operating funds to the Philadelphia Orchestra, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Kimmel Center. The Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts is also a partner.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
05.08.19