“Every major publishing house has a conservative imprint — Penguin Random House has two, Sentinel and Crown Forum — and maintains a stable of right-wing authors who may not attend literary festivals or mingle at the National Book Awards but command a sizable audience in red state America. Most mainstream publishers try to claim partisan neutrality and publish books across the political spectrum. But occasionally, publishers get dragged into a political scrum.”
Tag: 01.10.17
The Coen Brothers Start Their First TV Project
“The filmmaking brothers are partnering with Annapurna Television on Western anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. The duo, who wrote the script based on an original idea, will direct the project.”
House Republicans Fight To Remove Student Painting In US Capitol Depicting Civil Unrest
“The tiff spiraled out of control Tuesday, with House Republicans acting on two separate occasions to pull the artwork down from a tunnel in the Capitol complex, after it was rehung by Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), whose young constituent painted it.”
Can The Louisville Orchestra Help Mend A Divided Kentucky?
Conductor Teddy Abrams: “I thought, ‘wait a minute, instead of focusing on how to get a larger share of the state budget — which by the way is next to nothing; I think we get $30,000 from the state — maybe we should focus on getting an orchestra to serve the entire state and start using culture to break down some of these divides …. Because this just can’t go on. It’s ridiculous: Here are people living right next to each other who can’t have a meaningful dialogue, and who assume nothing will ever change. So I keep thinking, ‘what can I do about that?’”
The Little Rituals People Use To Ward Off Bad Luck Aren’t Just Arbitrary
Elizabeth Landau: “Otherwise reasonable people enact all kinds of rituals to promote good luck or cast off the bad, especially in situations of uncertainty. Three different Facebook friends of mine say they touch the outsides of the airplanes they are boarding before takeoff. Chimney sweeps are considered good luck in Germany, and another former colleague of mine would try to touch them when she was a girl growing up there.” What’s behind this is something called “embodied cognition.”
All The Events At Hamburg’s New Concert Hall – Yes, *All* Of Them – Are Selling Out
The director of the Elbphilharmonie says that tickets to performances by resident ensembles, touring orchestras like the New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony, chamber music, new music and jazz alike are all bought up within hours. He’s even selling “blind date” tickets to concerts by artists to be named later – and people are buying those, too.
‘Its Shell Holds An Unexpected World Inside’: An Art Critic Visits Hamburg’s New Elbphilharmonie
“The architects trick visitors into the daunting [eight-story] climb by changing the subject with a fun house of surprising events. The entrance leads past a decorative digital wall to a long ride on an escalator through a tunnel spotted with mirrored discs. Visitors land at a wide terrace, … [and] another escalator leads to an outdoor piazza … [which] marks the start of a modern version of the Spanish Steps in Rome.”
Sacramento Ballet Board Dumps Artistic Directors After 30 Years
“The Sacramento Ballet board of directors has announced the company’s 2017-18 season will be the last for co-artistic directors Ron Cunningham and Carinne Binda. … It will be their 30th season with the organization.” While Cunningham and Binda aren’t fighting the decision, they’re stating publicly that the board made it and they aren’t ready to go.
Can An Orchestra Bridge A State’s Political Divides? The Louisville Orchestra’s Music Director Means To Try
Teddy Abrams: “I thought, ‘wait a minute, instead of focusing on how to get a larger share of the state budget – which by the way is next to nothing; I think we get $30,000 from the state – maybe we should focus on getting an orchestra to serve the entire state and start using culture to break down some of these divides.’ Because this just can’t go on. It’s ridiculous: Here are people living right next to each other who can’t have a meaningful dialogue, and who assume nothing will ever change.”
Why Broadway’s (And Broadway Tours’) Box Office Is At An All-Time High
Alexis Soloski: “What accounts for the remarkable rise in revenue and attendance … that the last several years have witnessed? The answer probably relies on both the type of entertainment Broadway has been offering and the new strategies it has found to price and sell its wares.”