“Trading bombast for rigorous research, he wrote acclaimed biographies of American innovators as varied as Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Morse, John Cage, Harry Houdini and [Cotton] Mather himself, in a research-intensive process that Dr. Silverman described as ‘wrestling with an angel.'”
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The Director Of The Paris Opera Ballet, And The Modern-Dance Choreographer Who Taught Her How To Breathe Again
Aurélie Dupont: “Normally when you’re a ballet dancer, you do not ever show the effort when you dance, so you never breathe. Because breathing means that you need air, and if you need air that’s not good, and, anyway, you never learn how to breathe in school. Never.” Reporter Gia Kourlas talks with Dupont, former étoile and current director at the world’s oldest and most august ballet company, and choreographer Saburo Teshigawara.
Which Museum Landed The Fabled €500 Million Cerruti Collection Of Artworks?
“Turin’s Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art has obtained the legendary art collection of Francesco Federico Cerruti. … The iconic trove features 300 masterpieces from the Middle Ages to the 20th century accumulated by the enigmatic Italian collector. Extraordinary works by Francis Bacon, Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, and Amedeo Modigliani, as well as Pontormo, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, René Magritte, Andy Warhol, and Guilio Paolini feature in the jaw-dropping collection, alongside various furnishings and rare and ancient books.”
New Mayor Wants To Pull Books Depicting Same-Sex Unions From Verona’s Schools And Libraries
Says Federico Sboarina, who was elected in late June, “I am convinced that the family is composed [of a] mother and father, and I will defend this value in the education of children and young people.” Other local politicians are joining library and publishing organizations and gay advocates in pushing back against the policy.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 07.11.17
Social Silos
“I don’t know anyone who … ”
Recently, a colleague presented a workshop on nonprofit financial management to a group of board members of and volunteers for very small grassroots social service organizations. In the course of … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-07-11
A Bit Of Moscow Music
Our occasional Rifftides Russian correspondent, Svetlana Ilicheva, writes that one of her favorite listening spots in Moscow is the Zhurfac café. Not far from the Kropotkinskaya metro stop on Gogol Boulevard … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-07-11
Billions And Billions Of Views: For Five Years “Gangnam Style” Has Been The Most-Viewed Youtube Video. Now The Record Has Been Beaten
The surreal “Gangnam Style” video became so popular that it “broke” YouTube’s play counter, exceeding the maximum possible number of views (2,147,483,647), and forcing the company to rewrite its code. But the song has now been overtaken by another music video.
Arts Council England Delays Implementation Of Quality Metrics Plan
A statement said: “Our focus is on achieving the right result for the sector and Arts Council England, so we are reviewing our approach to ensure that we meet these needs. Once a decision has been made, we will of course make all interested parties aware.”
UK Education Minister: Decline In Arts Studies More Than Made Up For In IT Students
“The decline in the subjects to which the noble earl refers has been more than made up for in the substantial increase in the number of pupils taking IT and the now almost 70,000 pupils taking computing.”
Pop’s Attention Economy Is Seriously Distracted
“It’s harder to devote the time to finding out about and writing about a new band’s debut or second release. So you have an increasing number of albums that are released and sink without trace because something from one of the more established acts came along, attracted everyone’s attention and few people spent the time required to decipher the new act’s work.”
Music Meta-Data – If It’s Missing, Does It Exist?
“The back of the original CD, and the LP, lists personnel. There is studio information and other details. On other releases there might be liner notes or additional images. This material is what I fed on as a young listener, and I’m still hungry for it today. Much of it disappears when I rip a disc to my hard drive, and online services generally don’t fill the gaps. Sure, background is available to varying degrees in a constellation of mutually supportive and competitive complementary services, from Discogs to Genius.com to Wikipedia to AllMusic.com, but that collective effort doesn’t satisfactorily fill the metadata void left when online albums are shorn of their contextual information.”