You can view a movie whenever you want, but it exists in a past that you cannot alter. Live theatre may be evanescent, but it is always of the moment; it routinely brings the past into the present, and it can be altered from production to production. What, then, is the responsibility of theatremakers towards live shows that either were created or are set in the past?
Blog
Appreciating Poetry Requires Acts Of Archaeology
The critic must reconcile history and poetry. A poem is a product of its time just as much—if the poem’s any good—as a triumph over its time. Many poems are so familiar we have forgotten how to read them. We see the words but we paper over the cracks in our understanding. Criticism should try to see poems from the inside, to get down into the muck of the poem’s invention—and of course into the muck of its language.
Would You Ever Want To Be Able To Tap Into Someone Else’s Memories?
At some point in the future, could an A.I. company manufacture something akin to a neural bridge, allowing ordinary people to occasionally share their experiences? Maybe. Elon Musk recently announced the founding of Neuralink, a company that aims to put A.I. inside the head, merging humans and machines. Neural lace, the artificial hippocampus, brain chips to treat mood and memory disorders—these are just some of the mind-altering A.I. technologies already under development. While it may not be around the corner, a device akin to a temporary neural bridge—something that users can occasionally insert when they wish to share experiences—isn’t that far-fetched.
Enough With The Standing Ovations!
Call me old-fashioned, but I believe a standing ovation should be a precious thing saved only for that rare occasion where something is so extraordinary and superlative that you can’t help but want to salute it in a special way. I’m obviously in the minority.
Sotheby’s High Tech Forgery Detector
If Sotheby’s were a hospital, his department would be “the E.R. or a clinic.” One analysis is like an M.R.I., and another is like a CT scan. He described analyses as “noninvasive.” Mr. Martin tried to keep the discussion understandable to nonscientists, even comparing one device to a “Star Trek” phaser, but he also said things like: “Each one of the million pixels has its own spectrum.”
Jayne Mansfield – Hollywood Starlet, Polyglot Intellectual, Or Practicing Satanist? (Or All Three?)
“Some of the best known lurid ‘facts’ about Jayne Mansfield, the American film star of the ’50s and ’60s, are based on rumour. So the directors of a new documentary about her short and scandalous life faced a difficult task. Was Mansfield, one of the first actresses to be marketed as a ‘blonde bombshell’, also a violin-playing intellectual with superb comic timing who spoke five languages? Or was the star who came to be known as the ‘working man’s Marilyn Monroe’ actually a devil worshipper who was decapitated in a car crash as the result of a curse?”
Some Of The World’s Best Art Has Been Destroyed (Here’s Why It’s Is Important)
Noah Charney’s premise is fairly uncontroversial: He argues that our understanding of art history is skewed by survivorship bias and that to understand the art we still have, it’s critical to put it in the context of what’s been lost. “Many lost works were more important and celebrated than those that have survived,” he writes.
‘Ink-Stained Pixels’: The (Surprisingly Long) History Of E-Books Before Kindle
“The truth is that it took a long time for e-books to ‘arrive’; Amazon was far from first. There, admittedly, was a comfort level that had to be worked out with the electronic book, which gave Amazon the perfect opportunity to swoop in. Tonight’s Tedium talks about the evolution of electronic books before the Kindle. I’d tell you to turn the page, but we’re not really working with paper here, are we?”
How YouTube Has Become The New Pirate Radio
The channels occupy a precarious space between YouTube’s algorithm and its copyright policing, drawing comparisons to the unlicensed pirate radio stations of the 20th century, recreated in the digital sphere. Many of the channels blink in and out of existence within a week, but their presence has become a compelling part of the site’s musical ecosystem. And while competitors like Spotify are gaining, YouTube still dominates the streaming world, according to the latest Music Consumer Insight Report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
Art Museums Are Becoming Addicted To Blockbuster Shows: Felix Salmon
“Major event” exhibitions like the Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirrors show and the traveling David Bowie Is show “achieve two important goals for any museum: They increase attendance, and they increase revenue. But … blockbusters effectively ratchet up expectations everywhere, to the point at which lower-budget affairs can no longer capture the public imagination. That’s bad for most museums, and it’s bad for the public, too, which will increasingly subsist on the cultural equivalent of junk food.”