About the scene ion Kafka on the Shore in which fish fall from the sky: “People ask me, ‘Why fish? And why are they falling from the sky?’ But I have no answer for them. I just got the idea that something should fall from the sky. Then I wondered: what should fall from the sky? And I said to myself: ‘Fish! Fish would be good.'”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Is Classical Ballet Really Ready For ‘Flesh-Colored’ Tights That Are Brown, Not Pink?
Companies are finally getting there, but, as Theresa Ruth Howard reports, it’s taken a while for darker-skinned dancers to get the right to wear tights that actually match their skin tone.
How This Woman Became (Arguably) The Most Successful Sitcom Star In History
“There have been other television revolutionaries — Lorne Michaels, Carol Burnett, David Letterman — but, as she films the seventh and final season of HBO’s Veep, [Julia] Louis-Dreyfus’s success is unprecedented. From Seinfeld to The New Adventures of Old Christine to her remarkable portrayal of Vice President Selina Meyer, Louis-Dreyfus has earned 11 Emmys, including six in a row.” Says Veep‘s showrunner, “When people tell me that they wish Selina was president, that’s not what they mean. They wish Julia Louis-Dreyfus was president.”
Why We All Like Oscar The Grouch Better Than Big Bird
“Oscar the Grouch, thank you for helping me learn as a small child that one can get in bad moods, and it’s not the end of the world,” wrote one New York Times reader in response to the news that the puppeteer behind Oscar and Big Bird is retiring after 50 years. One child psychologist “said that Oscar personified the jumble of strong feelings that children experience and must learn to sort out.”
Artist Who Nailed His Scrotum To Red Square Faces Ten Years In Prison For Setting Fire To Bank Of France
Last October, Pyotr Pavlensky was arrested for starting a fire at the entrance to the Bank of France building in Paris — in what he calls an artwork titled Lighting. He was only released from pretrial detention last month, but prosecutors are demanding that he be returned to jail until trial (to begin in January) and are calling for a ten-year sentence. Meanwhile, FEMEN members supporting Pavlensky have been demonstrating outside the courthouse, their mouths taped shut and messages scrawled in black across their bare breasts.
Artist-Endowed Foundations: Why They’re A Growing Force In Philanthropy, And Why They’re Different From Other Foundations
“While a rapidly emerging force in modern arts philanthropy, AEFs are markedly different from other institutional foundations. What’s more, there are different kinds of AEFs, and how these institutions operate is very much a work in progress. AEFs face unique and complex accounting, governance and management challenges that can stymie the best philanthropic intentions.”
‘It’s Only Fair Of Me To Be Flexible’: Nico Muhly On Getting ‘Marnie’ Ready For The Metropolitan Opera Stage
“When I write a piece of orchestral music, I can be as controlling as I want, but with a piece this big, I try to be the opposite of precious. … Obviously, it’s anxiety-provoking, but it’s not going to be me onstage in a negligee singing a high B-flat.”
Nico Muhly Explains How He Goes About Composing A Piece Of Music
“For me, every project has three clearly defined phases: the scheming and planning; the writing of actual notes; the editing. The planning process almost entirely excludes, by design, notes and rhythms. … I don’t want to play [the audience] a movie with a clear exposition, obvious climax and poignant conclusion, nor do I want to drop them blind into a bat cave of aggressively perplexing musical jabs … [and] mapping the piece’s route helps me avoid the temptation of the romantic journey or the provocateur’s dungeon.”
At Pompeii, Archaeologists Uncover New Room Of Beautifully Preserved Frescoes
The room is a lararium (household shrine), 16 feet by 12 feet, with an altar, a small raised pool, the remains of a garden, and brightly colored wall paintings that “include two serpents, a wild boar fighting unidentified creatures against a blood-red backdrop, and a mysterious man with the head of a dog that may have been inspired by the Egyptian god Anubis.”
New Evidence Changes Scholars’ Understanding Of The Eruption That Buried Pompeii
Until now, the consensus was that the fateful explosion of Mount Vesuvius happened on August 24, 79 CE — this notwithstanding the presence amid Pompeii’s ruins of warm-weather clothing and the remains of autumn fruit. Now excavators have uncovered graffiti with the date October 17. Archaeologist Kristina Killgrove explains why it’s almost certain that this graffiti is from just before the eruption and not a prior year, and why the particular date of the catastrophe matters.