The death of The Voice isn’t just about the end of a newspaper. To some of us at least, it’s about the end of New York as a cultural and political center, as the place that the world turned to for art, for music, for leadership in new and uncomfortable ideas, often perceived by the mainstream to be dangerous or weird.
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Bobby Lynn Maslen, 87, Whose Bob Books Helped Millions Of Kids Learn To Read
“She compiled three sets of books, with about 12 books in each set and no more than a dozen pages in each book. … Readers encountered only four letters — M, A, T and S — and three-letter words. The texts became gradually more complicated, as letters were added until the first set introduced everything but Q, culminating in a sequence that featured a vet, a van, a big cat and a bad leg: ‘The cat ran zig zag. The vet ran zip zap. ZAM!'”
Call to Action: Want to Help the Fire-Ravaged National Museum of Brazil?
On its Facebook page, Rio de Janeiro’s Museu Nacional do Brazil has posted an “action list” of ways in which concerned museum lovers can participate in what the devastated institution optimistically calls “the reconstruction of the museum.”
Surprising (But Short) Chapter of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Life
Several days ago, I went to the New York Botanical Garden to see its summer exhibition, Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of Hawai‘i. It included several paintings I knew nothing about. And, as I soon discovered, from talking with friends and posts on Facebook and Instagram, neither did many other art-lovers.
Paul Taylor (1930-2018)
When Paul Taylor died of renal failure on Wednesday, August 29th, and I was coping with that news, I started to think not just of the 140 dances he made during his remarkable career, but of his connection to the great figures of 20th-century dance whose pantheon he joins.
L’ubomir Gašpar’s Cimbal Project: Jazz at the Crossroads Festival
Jazz-World fusions abound, but in general, the musicians that create this music play instruments that have already been integrated into the jazz “sound.” What is less common is to find musicians who play what Howard Mandel would dub “instruments rare to jazz.”
Recent Listening: Scott Reeves and others
Scott Reeves Jazz Orchestra, Without A Trace (Origin)
Wayne Escoffery, Vortex (Sunnyside)
Ivo Perelman, Octagon (Leo Records)
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong, Cheek To Cheek: The Complete Duet Recordings (Verve)
Michael Feingold: Paul Taylor, Great Playwright
“I once told a friend associated with Taylor’s company that I was thinking of writing an essay about Taylor as one of America’s great playwrights, continuing the themes of Eric Bentley’s famous essay projecting a similar role for Taylor’s mentor Martha Graham. I will never write that piece now (unless this is it), but several points that would have gone into it seem to have stuck in my head.”
The ‘Poetry Detective’ Who Tracks Down Plagiarists
“Some people see British poet Ira Lightman as a champion of poets whose verse is being shamelessly ripped off. Others view him as a blowhard who delights in ruining other people’s reputations. … Does Ira valiantly defend the original words and ideas of struggling poets? Or is his sleuthing just a way to feed his need for schadenfreude? In this episode of [The World in Words], Leo [Hornak] and Nina [Porzucki] do a little sleuthing of their own.” (podcast)
London’s Southbank Centre Picks A New Creative Director
Madani Younis will be in charge of the Southbank Centre’s literature, dance, performance and free programmes, working in a new management structure alongside the director of music, Gillian Moore, and the director of the Hayward Gallery, Ralph Rugoff. His arrival follows the departure of one of the UK’s highest-profile arts leaders, Jude Kelly, who was artistic director for 12 years. The centre stressed that Younis was not replacing Kelly and would be taking a new role.