Blog

Alex Ross: The LA Phil’s Mission To Expand An Orchestra

The L.A. Phil’s offbeat ventures are well and good, you sometimes hear people in the classical world mutter, but how’s its Beethoven? Isn’t the programming better than the playing? That put-down is unconvincing: an organization that can bring “Sustain” into the world is more valuable than one that executes yet another hyper-polished Beethoven Seventh. Still, the L.A. Phil has sometimes come up short in mainstream repertory, lagging behind the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, or the best European groups.

Remote Islanders Killed An Intruding Missionary Who Wanted To “Convert” Them

John Allen Chau’s very presence on the island posed a danger to the Sentinelese, since they may not have developed immunity to the common microbes he carried with him. He also threatened their way of life: In recent years, given the growing consensus that modern visitors tend to erode the cultures of isolated tribes, the Indian navy has enforced a “no contact” policy with the Sentinelese and other tribes in the area, patrolling the waters to prevent infiltration by anthropologists and adventure-seekers alike.

If All The Critics Are Gone, What Happens To Explaining New Dance?

For the most part, dance criticism as we have traditionally defined it is vanishing, probably forever. And no amount of verbiage on how pointe shoes are made or what a dancer eats for breakfast is going to help audience members — not to mention future historians — understand what is happening onstage in today’s dance. “This means that dance is becoming another item in the experiential supermarket, a thoughtless art without a memory,” Mainwaring writes. “As emerging choreographers come onto the scene — and there’s some very substantive work being made today — it remains unclear as to who will have either the expertise or the outlet needed to discuss the importance of these developing artistic voices.”

Twenty Years Ago The World Made An Agreement On Nazi-Looted Art. How’s It Working?

Twenty years on, that timetable has proved much too optimistic. Nazi-looted art is still regularly restituted: high-profile cases in the past year include an Oskar Kokoschka portrait returned to the heirs of the German-Jewish dealer Alfred Flechtheim by Sweden’s Moderna Museet (and sold for a record $20.4m on 12 November at Sotheby’s in New York). Many families are still seeking pictures stolen from their forefathers in what has been called the greatest art heist of all time.

A New Wave Of TV Shows Explores The Inner Workings Of The Brain

There are broader cultural reasons for this renewed interest in the inner workings of the mind. This is an age of ego, self-examination and narcissism. “When we say narcissism, that’s really brought on by technology,” says Esmail. “Now everyone has a platform. Everyone can be a publisher. Whole lives are put up for people to react to, to like, to dislike, to comment on, and, yes, that has turned everyone to look inwards, and to curate a personality.”

Countries Want Their Cultural Heritage Back. What’s A Museum To Do?

The first response to demands for restitution is simple. Concede to them. We have tons of other stuff in basements and attics. To be fair, this is starting to happen. France’s President Emmanuel Macron is legislating to “return Africa’s heritage to Africa”. The British Museum itself returns objects under permanent loan. The Benin bronzes are going to Nigeria and it has indicated a readiness to talk with Easter Island. A deeper worry is what restitution will mean to the purpose of world museums.

War Of The Worlds Did More Than Scare People At The Time – It Gave Us A Haunting Distrust Of Communications Technology

The supposed “panic” was exaggerated by Orson Welles after the fact, and indeed it’s hard to know if people actually did panic at the time. But “in the anxious world of 1930s listening, a radio that knew your mind was a radio that could change it. The broadcast ended soon after. It had changed minds indeed.”

A Graphic Novel Accused Of Being ‘Steeped In Islamophobia’ Is Pulled After Protests

The book, A Suicide Bomber Sits in the Library, was written by Newbery Award-winning author Jack Gantos and illustrated by artist Dave McKean, originally for a group of 2016 stories that Amnesty International put out “celebrating the power of books to transform lives.” But the publisher pulled the release after the Asian Author Alliance wrote a letter saying, among other things, “the simple fact is that today, the biggest terrorist threat in the US is white supremacy.”