“Frankly, I’ve never been good at writing to the common denominator. I’m still not. I haven’t done one show that was a huge ratings hit. And at this point, I’ve done about 130 hours of television. … As long as you had to go for the mass audience, you couldn’t have stories that were dark, that vexed people, that had lead characters who were morally inconsistent, unlucky, or tragic. You couldn’t write tragedies that any self-respecting Greek might recognize.”
Blog
Nashville Is Becoming A Serious Place For Jazz
A couple of years ago I did some recon at ground level, meeting with players like Spivey, guitarist Andy Reiss and saxophonists Jeff Coffin and Evan Cobb. Everybody told me the same thing: that Nashville has always nurtured a small but serious jazz culture, and that its constituency, like so much else in this booming city, is growing at a prodigious rate.
‘Irony Poisoning’ – Yes, It’s A Thing, And We Should Take It Seriously
“Yes, at the moment the concept is seen as little more than another bit of self-referential young person slang, used only in the deepest recesses of the web. … But irony poisoning should be entered, we think, into the pantheon of social science concepts that are used to rigorously measure, study and perhaps one day understand how social media platforms can rewire your brain and alter society.” Max Fisher and Amanda Taub explore the concept and how it works.
Bomb Destroys Palestinian Theater
The Said al-Mishal Centre brought theatre, dance and music to the beleaguered residents of Gaza City. Its destruction in an Israeli air strike has sparked outrage – and dealt a heavy blow to Palestinian culture
In Search Of A More Inclusive Plural Form Of Address Than ‘You Guys’
“There are, of course, plenty of people — including many women — who have no problem being addressed as ‘guys,’ think the word has evolved to be entirely gender-neutral, and don’t see a reason to change their usage. But others aren’t so sure. … In the course of reporting this story, I heard from teachers who wanted a better way to get students’ attention, an ice-cream scooper who wanted a better way to greet customers, and a debate coach who specifically encourages his students to use ‘y’all.’ These are representatives of a broad coalition of people who have contemplated, and often gone through with, excising ‘guys’ from their vocabularies.”
Students Are Dropping The Humanities In Droves
“Five years ago, I argued that the humanities were still near long-term norms in their number of majors. But since then, I’ve been watching the numbers from the Department of Education, and every year, things look worse. Almost every humanities field has seen a rapid drop in majors: History is down about 45 percent from its 2007 peak, while the number of English majors has fallen by nearly half since the late 1990s.”
Disney Will Give Up Tax Breaks To Avoid Paying Disneyland Workers A Living Wage
“The Walt Disney Company came under heavy fire on Thursday for a decision to walk away from hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks for its southern California theme parks, a move critics are characterizing as an extraordinary last-ditch effort to avoid paying a living wage to thousands of workers.”
Wanna A Piece Of A Warhol?
The art fund that will allow people—you, me, most everyone we know—to invest as little as $20 to purchase a share of an artwork. Masterworks acquires artworks that its leadership team believes to be undervalued—its first two offerings are an oil and silkscreen Colored Marilyn by Andy Warhol (bought for $1.8 million) and an oil Coup de Vent by Claude Monet (bought for $6.3 million)—for which investors may purchase a fraction.
Letting The Audience Onstage Can Have A Powerful Effect, Even If It’s Not During The Show
Howard Sherman: “The convention of the fourth wall is deeply ingrained in most regular theatregoers … But when such techniques [for breaking it] are deployed intentionally before, during and after a performance, the effect can be magical. … There needn’t even be a show in performance for the effect of bringing audiences on stage to have an impact. Even in smaller spaces, let alone iconic ones, allowing patrons to stand where the actors perform creates an inversion that can be highly affecting.”
Orlando’s New Ballet Company Will Go Out Of Its Way To Protect Its Dancers’ Bodies
Joseph Gatti’s vision for his new troupe, United Ballet Theatre (which debuts this weekend), was inspired by a fracture in his foot three years ago: “The injury really opened my eyes to the organization of a company and the care and treatment that needs to be addressed constantly. I wanted to create a company that’s treating the dancers not just as artists but as athletes.” His plan, the Gatti Method, is “to build strength training, conditioning, recovery time and physical therapy into UBT’s daily schedule.”