Music advocate and Kennedy Center trombonist Doug Rosenthal: “You didn’t ask for it, but here are things I’d love to never hear this upcoming year. Admittedly, I write this post wearing my Grumpy Pants. But I’m also donning my Optimism Cardigan. So join me for another list. Because hey, anything to distract you from that champagne headache, am I right?”
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‘Quite Simply The Greatest Theatrical Poem Ever Written’: Michael Billington On ‘Macbeth’
“If Macbeth continues to obsess us, it is because it seems both modern and timeless. We see all around us today the corrosive folly of overweening ambition and the insecurity that breeds tyranny. But Macbeth can never be reduced to a set of moralistic, crime-does-not-pay platitudes. It … has a language that eats into the soul.”
‘The Biggest Art Travesty Of 2017’: Indianapolis Museum Of Art Turning Itself Into ‘Newfields’
Following up on his contribution to CityLab‘s “Your Entire City Is an Instagram Playground Now” (last entry), Kriston Capps goes on a tweetstorm: “[In] the IMA’s rebrand as Newfields – an experience park – … the IMA’s board and director turned their backs on the museum, its curators, its collections, its accumulated knowledge, its history, and its legacy.”
The 100 Greatest Nonfiction Books In English (A Highly Arguable List From The Guardian)
Given in reverse chronological order, from Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction (2014) back to the King James Bible (1611), Robert McCrum’s choices include historical monuments (The Federalist Papers, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman); landmark reference works (Samuel Johnson’s and Noah Webster’s dictionaries, Roget’s first thesaurus); great memoirs (Ben Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Vera Brittain), scientific texts (A Brief History of Time, On the Origin of Species, reportage, polemics; provocative modern choices Barack Obama, Naomi Klein) – and a few WTF titles that’ll make you go, “Wait, that’s not nonfiction!“
How I Chose The 100 Greatest Works Of Nonfiction In English
Robert McCrum: “Literary classics cluster on the north face of Parnassus. For this vertiginous terrain there are different sherpas. Italo Calvino says that a classic is ‘a book that has never finished what it wants to say’. Ezra Pound identifies ‘a certain eternal and irresponsible freshness’ … Alan Bennett wryly notes: ‘Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.'” (includes lame reason for including drama, poetry, and religious scripture)
Some Airlines Are Eliminating Seatback Screens
“Formally called in-flight entertainment, the screens, and the preselected media on them, go a long way toward keeping passengers happy and distracted. The longer the flight, the more useful the seatback entertainment becomes. But those entertainment systems are expensive to install. They can cost $10,000 per seat … They also add bulk and weight to seats and quickly become technologically obsolete.” (Other airlines, however, are doubling down on them.)
Hero Dogs Are Being Trained To Sniff Out Smuggled Antiquities
“Vets at the Penn Vet Working Dog Centre in Philadelphia are to train canines to sniff out illegally trafficked antiquities, in partnership with the city’s Penn Museum and the non-profit organisation Red Arch Cultural Heritage Law & Policy Research.”
Facing Allegations Of Abuse, Peter Martins Resigns From New York City Ballet
“After accusations of sexual harassment and physical and verbal abuse” – and following an arrest (his second) for drunk driving on Thursday – “Peter Martins, the powerful leader of New York City Ballet who shaped the company for more than three decades, has decided to retire.”
Trove Of Medieval Stained Glass Fragments Discovered At Westminster Abbey
“The salvaged glass – some dating back to the 13th century, including stars, flowers and sun rays, fierce little mythical animals and beautiful medieval faces – is being recycled into dazzling new windows being made for the abbey at the stained glass studio at Canterbury Cathedral, where some of the original medieval glass artists may have worked.”
New Poetry Awards Funded By Art-World Superstars
“Each award was endowed by visual artists like Ellsworth Kelly and his partner, Jack Shear, as well as the foundations of Cy Twombly and Roy Lichtenstein.” The first round of winners are Lisa Robertson, Anne Boyer, and Fred Moten.