Bernheimer, who was the music critic for the LA Times for more than 30 years, “was renowned internationally for the strong opinions he voiced in his reviews combined with a singular wit and personality that often provoked strong responses from his readers, both positive and negative.” – Los Angeles Times
Author: ArtsJournal2
José José, Mexico’s Prince Of Song, Has Died At 71
His career spanned four decades and millions of albums, and the singer was nominated for six Grammys, though he never won. (The Los Angeles Times has collected five of the best of José’s performances for those who don’t know El Principe de la Canción.) – Variety
As K-Pop, Bollywood, And Turkish TV Arise, Are The Days Of U.S. Cultural Dominance Over?
Author Fatima Bhutto thinks so. “Hollywood is no longer the center. America is no longer the center. Now we have a multipolar world. So Turkey is a center. India is a center. Pakistan is a center. China is certainly a center. Nigeria is a center. South America – so many centers. And I think that’s – I mean, as a viewer, as a listener, I find that really, really exciting.” – NPR
Syria’s Secret Library
In 2013, in the war-ravaged town of Daraya, people collected books after shelling and wrapped them in blankets to take them to a secret basement location. “The self-appointed chief librarian, a 14-year-old named Amjad, would write down in a large file the names of people who borrowed the books, and then return to his seat to continue reading. … The library hosted a weekly book club, as well as classes on English, math and world history, and debates over literature and religion.” – The New York Times
Leonardo Mocked By Other Italians For His Ginger Hair And ‘Unconventional’ Sexuality
A “comic strip” of the time shows that “although the work of the great Italian was popular in his time, an extensive new study of the artist to be published this week has outlined evidence that he was the butt of gossipy jokes in Renaissance Milan.” – The Observer (UK)
Myron Bloom, French Horn Player Who Helped Mold The Cleveland Orchestra, Has Died At 93
Bloom “was horn royalty. As Szell’s principal horn in Cleveland for more than two decades, he appeared on many of the orchestra’s celebrated recordings, and was the soloist in its classic account of the Horn Concerto No. 1 by Richard Strauss. He later became principal horn of the Orchestre de Paris under the conductor Daniel Barenboim, and an influential teacher.” – The New York Times
Chicago Festival Has To Cancel A Highly Anticipated Premiere Because Immigration Denies Visas To Playwright And Crew
Conchi León and her touring cast and crew had been making Chicago-specific plans since March, building a special traveling set for her Yucatán- set play La Tía Mariela. It was set to premiere at the Chicago’s International Latino Theater Festival … until the US Department of Citizenship Immigration Services decided not to issue visas to the cast and crew because “they were determined to not be ‘culturally unique.'” What? – NBC News
Hollywood Is Fascinated With Beautiful Women’s Descents And Deaths
And so, it seems, are audiences. What’s the deal with these less than biopics, more like thanatopics? Ah: “Each movie is too enamored of its legend, of her talent and beauty, to acknowledge that her circumstances and pathologies aren’t exceptional but widely shared, borne largely of gendered inequality: unequal pay, imbalance of power, public hypersexualization, and the fast-approaching or long-past expiration date on her usefulness to Hollywood.” – Slate
The Nonsensical Book Policies In Prisons Across The Nation
Seriously, excuse us? “A prison in Ohio blocked an inmate from receiving a biology textbook over concerns that it contained nudity. In Colorado, prison officials rejected Barack Obama’s memoirs because they were ‘potentially detrimental to national security.’ And a prison in New York tried to ban a book of maps of the moon, saying it could ‘present risks of escape.'” – The New York Times
We’re Living In A Post-Happiness World
So we’re pursuing “joy” instead – something that comes and goes and that we don’t feel we need to sustain. Could this actually be a boon for the arts as we start to realize that collective experiences are important? “Contentment is the next growth industry.” – The New York Times