Haruki Murakami’s new novel, 1Q84, begins with a blast of music “so strange and powerful that it literally propels the heroine, Aomame, out of the taxi and into the subtly changed reality.” That music? LeoÅ¡ JanáÄek’s “Sinfonietta.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
We Can’t Predict The Future. Why Do We Believe We Can?
Daniel Kahneman: “The illusion of skill is not only an individual aberration; it is deeply ingrained in … culture. Facts that challenge such basic assumptions – and thereby threaten people’s livelihood and self-esteem – are simply not absorbed.”
Little Red Corvette, Why Have You Turned All Silver And Boring?
“Cars of yesteryear (if we accept yesteryear to mean the 1960s through the early 1980s) were often painted in bright, popping colors–supersaturated pigments in hues that don’t appear on most modern vehicles.” Why?
E-book Piracy’s A Bad Thing, Except When It’s Perfect For Authors
“If I can buy all my books second-hand, grab them at the library or borrow them from my friends, then why would I ever pay full price for the same product? Why would anyone? And yet the indisputable fact is that people – and I’d even go so far as to say a majority of people – do.”
Will Jane Austen Spin-Offs, Knock-Offs, Spoofs And Homages Ever Go Away? Don’t Be Ridiculous
A mash-up of “The Thin Man” and “Pride and Prejudice?” Yes, please, says Scott Simon of NPR in an interview with writers Frank Delaney and Diane Meir.
Hungarians Protest Appointment Right-Wing Theatre Director
There’s a new director for the Budapest theatre – one with right-wing credentials and, thousands of protestors say, an anti-Semitic past.
How Does England Celebrate The 400th Anniversary Of The King James Bible? With Plays, Some By Atheists, Of Course
Playwrights from Neil LaBute to the Archbishop of Canterbury, not to mention Tim Rice and Jeanette Winterson, take on all of the books of the Bible in a 24-hour cycle honoring the gorgeously written King James.
A Good Design Can Do A Lot, Especially To Alleviate Poverty’s Effects
Curator Cynthia E. Smith: “What the best designers illustrate is how to give form to sometimes very simple ideas. Good design involves bringing not just a fresh eye to problems but, most of all, listening to the people who live in those communities. We’re talking about a billion people living in informal settlements today.”
How Do You Say “To The Moon!” In Mandarin?
“There’s several reasons why China might want the moon, not the least of which is its trove of mineral resources that include water and helium-3, a potential fuel for fusion energy reactors. Laying claim to the moon also would have a powerful psychological impact, displacing America’s Apollo forays and catapulting China’s international status in one fell swoop.”
What Isherwood Reads When He Reads About Theatre
New York Times critic Charles Isherwood: “While reading about theater is also part of the job, it’s really a pleasure too. … Although theater has receded from the cultural front lines in the last couple of decades, new books about or by theater luminaries continued to be published with some regularity.”