“The most popular theory about the origins of music on elevators, repeated everywhere from the New Yorker to the writer Joseph Lanza’s history of Muzak, is that elevators were terrifying, and people needed the music to calm their frazzled nerves. … Yet on closer interrogation, there are a few holes in this explanation. The earliest known references to music in elevators are from the early 1930s … Were people really afraid of elevators nearly 80 years after they were invented?”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Could Making All Acting Awards Gender-Neutral Backfire?
“In an open nominations field, the category could be dominated by one gender at the expense of another.” Mark Shenton points out several examples of awards where the acting categories aren’t separated by gender – and where women have subsequently been outnumbered by men as nominees.
Bolshoi’s Controversial Nureyev Bio-Ballet Sweeps Russia’s Top Dance Awards
“Among the award winners at the Prix Benois ceremony in Moscow was the ballet’s original choreographer Kirill Serebrennikov, who is awaiting trial on what his supporters say are charges trumped up to punish him for challenging the Russian establishment. The Nureyev ballet – which was completed by a stand-in choreographer because Serebrennikov was under house arrest – won in the best male dancer, best composer, and best choreographer categories, in addition to Serebrennikov’s gong for best production design.”
Britain’s Arts World Sees The Working Class As ‘A Problem To Be Solved’
Stage director Javaad Alipoor: “The arts world has turned working-class people into a problem to be solved rather than audience members or artists to be developed. Focusing on the poorest in society also dodges the main question we should be asking: why is it not only the super-exploited but the majority in this country who do not engage with subsidised theatre or arts? These are people who fill out football stadiums, comedy clubs, gigs and commercial theatres, often paying more for tickets than is charged by state-subsidised productions. Folk who can afford a big night out, but don’t want to spend it with us.”
One Of The World’s Leading Gay Novelists Says The Gay Novel ‘Has Had Its Day’
Alan Hollinghurst: “I observe that the gay novel [today] is dissolving back into everything else … I would far rather be living now, on balance, but I think there is more nutrition for the novelist in the earlier period when things were more difficult and gay life was more coded. It is more fascinating to write about something half concealed than something that is completely open.”
Alan Hollinghurst Is Wrong – There Are Still Plenty Of Gay Novels To Be Written
Matthew Todd: “Homelessness; HIV (in the west); the way app culture and HIV-prevention drug PrEP are ushering in a new age of sexual liberation; growing hate crime; marriage; the experience of black, Asian and minority ethnic people; transgender people living through hostility in the media reminiscent of the tabloid beating lesbians and gays took in the 80s; the list is endless … And the legacy of gay shame that still leaves LGBT+ people with statistically higher levels of addiction, depression and suicide is only now being aired.”
Clarence Fountain, 88, Leader Of Blind Boys Of Alabama
“Fountain was enrolled at the age of eight into the Alabama Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind. While singing in the school’s choir, Fountain and five friends formed the Happy Land Jubilee Singers … [and changed] their name to the Blind Boys of Alabama at the turn of the decade. … Despite being one of the more famed black gospel groups during the Fifties, the Blind Boys of Alabama’s popularity waned in the late Sixties and Seventies as secular soul music emerged.” They returned to wide popularity in 1983 with their participation in Lee Breuer’s famous Off-Broadway production of The Gospel at Colonus.
Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Winds Itself Down With Big Gifts To Whitney, Smithsonian
“The foundation is announcing this week that it is giving around 400 artworks in all media by the Pop Art master — about half its holdings — to the Whitney Museum of American Art. … The foundation will also give historical material comprising approximately half a million documents to the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.”
Google And World Monuments Fund Project Spotlights Endangered Historic Sites In Iraq
“Launched on the Google Arts & Culture platform today, the project includes drone footage of ancient sites and structures like the ziggurat in Borsippa and the Archway of Ctesiphon, 3D models of now lost architecture, like Babylon’s famous Ishtar Gate, and documentation of sites that have been damaged or destroyed by ISIS, including Nimrud, Hatra and Mosul.”
Philadelphia Orchestra’s Concerts In Israel Are A Big Hit, But Controversy Is Still Causing Problems
The Philadelphians’ performances in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem have gotten unusually warm receptions (standing ovations and rhythmic clapping) from Israeli audiences. And yet, reports David Patrick Stearns, several musician visits to community organizations, including to a center for disadvantaged children and to the leading music center serving Israeli Palestinians, have been cancelled because those organizations didn’t want to get caught up in the controversy and media attention surrounding the tour.