“[The] wise old fool, [with] his long-suffering donkey … has been a part of local culture for centuries – and has proved useful to Arab jokers and satirists right up until the modern day.”
Blog
Report: Once Red-Hot Chinese Art Market Is Struggling To Revive
According to a new study by artnet and the China Association of Auctioneers (CAA). Incidences of non-payment rose seven percent in 2016, and the number of overseas auction houses offering Chinese art and antiquities fell for the first time in seven years.
The ‘Voice Of Choice’ For Audiobooks
“Mr. Guidall is the undisputed king of audiobooks: more than 1,300 so far, with a stack of new prospects beside his bed awaiting his attention. … He’s a bit disdainful of some of his competition in the audiobook world. ‘They’re just reading out loud,’ he said. ‘They don’t have an emotional underpinning. There’s a rhythm to speech in terms of what’s implied. If it’s raining in the book, there’s got to be something about the voice that evokes the rain.'”
Members Of President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities Resign En Masse
“Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions,” the letter states. “We took a patriotic oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values. Your values are not American values. We must be better than this. We are better than this. If this is not clear to you, then we call on you to resign your office, too.”
University Of Utah Introduces Its New MFA In Ballet
“This fall, the University of Utah’s School of Dance welcomes the first class of candidates to its newly reinstated Master of Fine Arts in Ballet program, currently the only ballet-specific MFA in the country.”
Spectacle Of Hate: What We Can Learn From White Supremacists’ Long And Careful Cultivation Of Their Own Aesthetic
“The alt-right’s Tiki-torch, khaki-pants parade on Friday night has birthed many a ‘Hitler luau’ joke.” Yet, explains Rebecca Onion, white supremacist groups in the US, especially the two incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan, have a long history of deliberately making their physical appearance silly and using that silliness to help them get away with mayhem and murder.
Web Journalism’s ‘Pivot To Video’ Is Not – **Not** – Because Of Audience Demand
In a much-discussed Twitter thread, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo reminds us that online news consumers, including Millennials, prefer their news in print (otherwise, why would so many sites resort to autoplay?) and explains why media company after media company is ignoring that preference (and laying off countless journalists in the process).
High Anxiety: Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Hard Road Back To Acting
The Pulitzer-winning playwright (Between Riverside and Crazy, The MF with the Hat, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot) began his career as an actor, and old colleagues still want to work with him. But until this summer, he hadn’t been onstage since 2004, and in the meantime he’d let stress affect his health in other ways and backed out of several acting jobs he’d already accepted. As the time approached for the revival of Mamet’s American Buffalo he’s now co-starring in, his body brought things to a crisis.
Keeping Monet’s Gardens Growing For 40 Years – Meet The Head Gardener At Giverny
Gilbert Vahé began work at Giverny when the restoration of the gardens first began in 1977, and (except for a five-year temporary retirement that ended this January) he’s been there ever since, “work[ing] to maintain the original aesthetic – a certain profile of color and light – that corresponds to Monet’s vision.”
At The Stella Adler Acting Studio’s Summer Workshop For Teens In Poverty
A reporter visits Summer Shakespeare, Adler’s five-week intensive program for teens living at or below the poverty level. Says director Kern McDonald, “The concept of the Stella Adler Studio – that being a better actor is equal to being a better human – is the base of this program.”