Sasha Weiss: “When I once made the mistake of calling his drag a ‘persona,’ or a character he plays, he promptly corrected me: ‘I’m just exposing what I look like on the inside.’ Wearing jeans and a T-shirt is his way of hiding; drag is the opposite — it’s revealing, with tremendous confidence and panache, who he really is, and making room for the audience to be as odd and authoritative and mischievous and exposed as he is.” – The New York Times Magazine
Author: Matthew Westphal
To Replace ‘Car Talk’ On Stations’ Weekend Schedules, NPR Develops A Lighthearted Hard News Show
It’s Been a Minute isn’t a comedy show like Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. Says co-founder and host Sam Sanders, “We kind of trick our listeners into thinking it’s like a little fun talk party but, like, no, we’re giving you a lot of news stories. It’s still journalism. We’re still storyboarding, we’re still researching, we’re still fact-checking.” – Current
50 Years Of Dance Theater Of Harlem
In 1969, Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook started the company in a converted garage. “Together, they wanted to prove to the world something that still needed proving back then: that blacks could indeed dance ballet — and marvelously.” They did, and the company developed a worldwide reputation, one that survived even an eight-year hiatus due to financial troubles. “In honor of the anniversary, current and former members talked about their time with the company and, of course, Mitchell and his legacy. Here are edited excerpts from those interviews.” – The New York Times
Will Non-Physicists Ever Be Able To Intuitively Understand The Connection Between Space And Time?
Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli thinks that “counterintuitive phenomena — for example, of time moving slower for faster travelers — will, slowly, become intuitive. ‘It has happened with the fact that the Earth is a sphere (clarified two millennia ago) and the fact that it spins (clarified a few centuries ago). At first these were extremely counterintuitive ideas; nowadays we accept them as comprehensible. But it takes time.'” – Nautilus
Why The Slowpoke In Front Of You On The Sidewalk Or In The Checkout Line Drives You Nuts
Blame evolution. “Impatience made sure we didn’t die from spending too long on a single unrewarding activity. It gave us the impulse to act. But that good thing is gone. The fast pace of society has thrown our internal timer out of balance. It creates expectations that can’t be rewarded fast enough — or rewarded at all.” – Nautilus
Think Western Music Theory Was Invented In Ancient Greece? Nope
In fact, a set of scholars now believe, the Greeks based their music on scales and instruments like the lyre that had been developed more than 1,000 years earlier in Babylonia, from which come the oldest evidence of a heptatonic scale and the oldest pieces of music we have. Olivia Giovetti does a deep dive (with particular reference to opera). – Van
Terri Gross Talks To Yannick Nézet-Séguin On ‘Fresh Air’
On conducting with his whole body: “My model in this is really Leonard Bernstein because he also [conveyed] how every bone of the body should express music while on the podium. Why just limit it to the arms, which is what usually people see? It’s the eyes, the eyebrows, the shoulders, the feet.” (audio) – NPR
How 3D-Printed Replicas Of Objects Are Changing The Ways Museums Can Engage Their Audiences
“Being able to touch, explore the shape, feel the weight and even smell the replica of an artefact has the potential to transform cultural heritage experiences. In reality, these connections are the closest that most people could ever have with heritage objects. What is new about digitally-fabricated replicas is that they can be extremely accurate with regards to the shape of the original.” – The Conversation
‘The Apollo Theater Of The South,’ Long Derelict, Restored To Its Art Deco Glory And Now A Working Arts Center
Before World War II, the Attucks Theater was the center of Norfolk’s thriving historically black business district. Like many such buildings, it fell on hard times in the late 20th century, hitting bottom as a pawn shop and decaying storage space. Now it’s a busy center for the arts for its community and city as well as a presenter of big-ticket performers. – CityLab
For 60 Years, ‘The Blue Prince Of Montmarte’ Has Presided Over Paris’s Most Venerable Drag Show
“When Michou” — né Michel Catty — “first set foot in Montmartre in the 1950s, it was a cheap bohemian area, home to artists, writers and performers, as well as beggars and an ethnically mixed working class. These days, the neighborhood gleams with an expensive gentrification. … Yet in the twilight of his life, this darling of the Parisian demimonde and his club are still attracting large crowds even while performing an act fine-tuned decades ago.” – The New York Times