Alyssa Rosenberg: “From the moment he arrives at the villa where he’s to spend the summer, Oliver feels almost shockingly American … [The film] felt like a gently twisty examination of what’s appealing and disappointing about Americanness, as seen from an outsider to it.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
There’s A New Mediation Service For Cases Of Sexual Harassment In Theater
The confidential service, launched by attorney Norman Siegel and actress Marin Ireland and set up for now as a six-month pilot project, could resolve cases with options from an apology and promise to stop harassing behavior to a potential financial settlement.
They Scanned Renée Fleming’s Brain To Study How Music Can Help Treat Neurological Disorders
“The opera star … spent two hours in the scanner to help researchers tease out what brain activity is key for singing. How? First Fleming spoke the lyrics. Then she sang them. Finally, she imagined singing them. ‘We’re trying to understand the brain not just so we can address mental disorders or diseases or injuries, but also so we can understand what happens when a brain’s working right and what happens when it’s performing at a really high level,’ said NIH researcher David Jangraw.”
A ‘Marathon Of Pain’: What It’s Like For The Professional Dancers Doing ‘Nutcracker’ For A Month, Year After Year
Sarah L. Kaufman: “For many families, The Nutcracker is a beloved holiday ritual, a respite from the season’s stresses, an oasis of beauty, innocence and poetry. For the dancers, it is a marathon of pain, physical and existential. It is a minefield of injuries, illnesses and choking hazards. It can be crushingly boring. It also involves incontinent children.”
De Sade’s ‘120 Days Of Sodom’ Declared National Treasure By France
“Officials ordered that the 18th-century erotic masterpiece be withdrawn from sale, along with André Breton’s Surrealist Manifestos, banning their export from France, the Aguttes auction house said.”
They Said Philly’s Enormous Larry Rivers Tile Mural Couldn’t Be Moved – It’s Been Moved
“Not only that, it has been completely restored, buffed up, burnished, and reinstalled in a surprising location – the SEPTA concourse beneath the Wanamaker Building, where it stands out in a way that it never did when it was up against the wall, blocked by vendor carts, and ignored by shoppers hustling through the [Gallery] mall.”
The Contemporary, Baltimore’s Museum-Without-A-Building, Suspends Operations
This marks the second time that The Contemporary has closed: in 2012, it went into a 15-month limbo following an unsuccessful attempt to operate in a building of its own. This time, although the two staffers have been laid off and no shows are scheduled, the problem is not money, according to the board.
Author Of ‘Cat Person’ Lands $1 Million+ Book Deal
Kristen Roupenian, whose New Yorker short story about a 21st-century-style bad date has become a viral sensation this month, has been signed by Scout Press for two books, a short story collection under the title You Know You Want This and an as-yet-untitled novel.
Amazon Has Its Own 80-Piece Orchestra And A Cappella Group
“‘About this time last year, one of our oboists looked through our employee directory and looked through people’s interests, particularly in classical musical instruments, and he just sent out this massive email, asking ‘Hey, who wants to start an orchestra?” recalls Beau Curran, a technical account manager on Amazon’s digital music operations team and an oboist in the Amazon Symphony. ‘The first day of rehearsal, we were really wondering whether we’d just end up with a saxophonist and a keyboardist, and that would be our orchestra.'”
New York Gets New Unit To Prosecute Antiquities Trafficking
“Manhattan district attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. has formed a dedicated antiquities trafficking unit to deal with the increasing number of illicit antiquities cases in New York City. … [Vance’s] office says that the dedicated unit is a logical step given that New York is a major marketplace for art and antiquities – both legitimate and illicit.”