Philippa Chong asked them. “Critics were understandably ambivalent towards amateur reviewers despite their appreciation for general readers’ enthusiasm about books. … If the critics I interviewed were concerned that amateurs did not bring enough analysis to their reading or lacked credentials to speak to a book’s artistic merit, they had equal concern … that literary scholars couldn’t always ‘code-switch’ to make their specialist form of criticism accessible to general readers looking for a straightforward review.” – Literary Hub
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The Case Of The Non-Review Book Review And What It Says About Us
Should Jeanine Cummins have written the book? Lauren Groff doesn’t know. Should she have reviewed it? She doesn’t know! “Perhaps this book is an act of cultural imperialism; at the same time, weeks after finishing it, the novel remains alive in me,” she writes. – The New Republic
Gypsy Rose Lee’s Son Remembers Life On The Road With Mother
Erik Lee Preminger (his father was film director Otto Preminger) started traveling with his mother while still an infant, got his first jobs with her show before he was old enough to go to school, and was her dresser by the time he was a teenager. Of course he has stories — like the time when Gypsy was driving her first Rolls-Royce through Switzerland in winter and got stuck in the snow: “She tried to dig us out using a bidet she had stolen from a hotel. It was quite an adventure.” – American Theatre
How Two Belgian Avant-Gardists Rebuilt ‘West Side Story’ From Top To Bottom
Despite his success with revisionist productions of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller plays, Ivo van Hove seemed an unlikely choice to direct a major revival of the Bernstein-Laurents-Sondheim musical. Even less likely was the selection of austere formalist Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker to choreograph the first production whose dance wasn’t based on Jerome Robbins’s exuberant movement. Yet their participation was blessed by Stephen Sondheim, the only one of the show’s creators still living. Writer Sasha Weiss spent several months watching them cast and develop the production — and then rework their ideas (in one notable case, at the cast’s insistence). – The New York Times Magazine
Italy’s Carabinieri Art Squad, Catching Thieves, Looters, And Traffickers For 50 Years
The Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale was founded in 1969 as the world’s first law enforcement service to specialize in art and cultural heritage. Its agents have worked from Rome and Venice to London and New York to war-ravaged Palmyra to recover stolen treasures, and it has developed an international databse of 1.1 million missing objects. – Artsy
One Of New York’s Most Storied Experimental Venues Is Letting Artists Run It For A Year
“Performance Space New York [formerly P.S. 122], the historic performance arts nonprofit in Manhattan’s East Village, will shift to a new, artist-run model for 2020. A cohort of NYC-based artists and collectives will direct the organization’s programming, working in collaboration with its staff, board, and leadership. The artists will have ‘full transparency into the organization’s inner workings’ and control of its annual production budget to pay their own wages and develop programs … The only requirements of their tenure is that the spaces must be utilized.” – Hyperallergic
How Rotten Tomatoes Actually Works
A key point that many people don’t realize is that the site does not use any algorithms: each review that goes into a movie’s or TV show’s Tomatometer score is read and evaluated by a human curator. “In a world of endless choice, on an internet increasingly dictated by predictive algorithms that recommend ‘for you,’ Rotten Tomatoes represents something more analog. And it raises the question: What’s the best way to choose? Or, more to the point, who do you trust?” Reporter Simon van Zuylen-Wood spent a couple of days at the Rotten Tomatoes to learn just how the site operates. – Wired
Detroit Symphony Chooses Its Next Music Director (It Was Love At First Sight)
Jader Bignamini’s first performances with the DSO were unexpected: in 2018, due to cardiac surgery, outgoing music director Leonard Slatkin had to cancel the final concerts of his tenure with the orchestra, and Bignamini stepped in. It was, says the DSO’s board chairman, “the right time, right place, right chemistry.” The new maestro begins his initial six-year term this fall. – Detroit Free Press
Sasha Waltz And Johannes Öhman To Leave Staatsballett Berlin
“According to a company press release [about the two artistic directors], Öhman is leaving to accept a directorship at Swedish contemporary dance presenter Dansens Hus. Waltz” — whose appointment was greeted with fury by the company’s dancers (though they later patched things up) — “has chosen to depart at the same time rather than become sole artistic director, though she will continue to be artistically involved with the company through 2021 as a choreographer.” – Dance Magazine
Longtime Boston Symphony CEO Mark Volpe Announces Retirement
“In an era when many of his peers have been buffeted by economic challenges, Mr. Volpe, 62, has kept the orchestra on firm footing by capitalizing on what he has referred to as its ‘multiple brand strategy.’ … During his tenure, the Boston Symphony may not have been as flashy as, say, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which has changed how orchestras think about programming and community engagement. But Boston has steadily expanded in ambition and reputation, and avoided the labor unrest that has hit some of its peers.” – The New York Times