“When Jeanette Winterson was a child – a redheaded scrap of a thing, as fierce and self-willed as Jane Eyre but readier with her fists – she … was adopted, raised by evangelical Pentecostals in a working-class town in northern England in the 1960s and ’70s. … To the dismay of her mother, Winterson turned out to be brilliant, literary, defiant and gay.”
Tag: 02.26.12
Syracuse’s Library-In-A-Phone-Booth
“Mother Earth, as she prefers to be called, is the steward of the Syracuse’s first Little Free Library, which opened early this month in an abandoned telephone box near a bus stop and grocery store on Gifford Street. The Little Free Library credo is ‘take a book, leave a book.’ That’s pretty much the only rule.”
Drama Critics Should Not Write Plays, Says Drama Critic
Lyn Gardner: “I tend to think that, while 30 years of sitting in the dark watching other people’s plays has taught me a great deal, one of the things it hasn’t taught me is how to write a good play. Writing reviews and recognising [sic] a great (or even promising) play are entirely different things, and I think it’s best to leave the latter to the professionals.”
A Mini-Sistema For Dance In Colombia
La Compañía del Cuerpo de Indias is something like a dance equivalent of Venezuela’s Simon Bolívar Symphony Orchestra – a professional troupe drawn from El Colegio del Cuerpo, which “draws many of its students from Cartagena’s most impoverished districts. Many come from a shantytown called Nelson Mandela, home to many families displaced by years of violence that pulverised Colombia in the 1980s and 90s.”
Death Of A Salesman, A Play For Our Time
Charles Isherwood: “There is never a wrong time to take a fresh look at a great work of art. But … [the] current moment could hardly be more opportune for another wrenching rendezvous with Willy Loman, the American dreamer fighting a losing battle with fortune in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.“
True Love, Nietzsche, And Groundhog Day
Clemson philosopher Todd May considers the 1993 film starring Bill Murray in the light of Nietzsche’s concept of eternal return.
Rappers At The Royal Ballet (What Would Dame Margot Say?)
“A new work by the Royal Ballet is to feature pop singers and hip-hop rappers accompanying ballerinas on stage at Covent Garden in a collaboration with music producer Mark Ronson.”
At Home With Ai Weiwei And His Posse
“With all the people hanging around, the place feels a little bit like a very comfortable, more wholesome version of Andy Warhol’s Factory except that Chinese state security agents are waiting just outside the walls and could burst in again at the first hint of subversive behaviour.”
An Increasingly Rancorous Exchange Over What Constitutes A “Fact”
“I, the hypothetical reader, am putting my trust in you to give me the straight dope, or at least to make some effort to warn me whenever you’re saying something that is patently untrue, even if it’s untrue for ‘artistic reasons.’ I mean, what exactly gives you the authority to introduce half-baked legend as fact and sidestep questions of facticity?”
Stop! Take A Picture Before You Drink The (Latte) Art
“There are technical reasons for variations from barista to barista, like how quickly they pour the milk through the espresso or the size of the cup; but in the end, it’s the rhythm of their hand, just like any artist’s hand, that makes the difference. No two are alike, and personal style can be your best friend or something you fight in the quest for perfection.”