“Indeed, the first reaction on entering Circle’s new hospital outside Bath is that you’ve entered a hotel by mistake. There’s a cheery brown-uniformed concierge, a scent of non-hospital food, and a clean-lined, light-filled, stone-paved modern interior with large cylinders of gauzy cloth hanging, like giant lamp shades, from the ceiling.”
Tag: 03.21.10
Sam Shepard Speaks – And Even Giggles
“He doesn’t often give interviews but when he does he’s routinely described as ‘taciturn’ and ‘private’; his answers are ‘curt’ or ‘terse’. … [But] it transpires that Sam Shepard isn’t actually cold or taciturn or intimidating at all. Or at least the Sam Shepard I meet isn’t, because it turns out that there seem to be several different Shepards co-existing side by side.”
‘Twin Peaks,’ 20 Years Later
“Twin Peaks was a sensation from the moment it first aired … and still, 20 years later, the influence of David Lynch’s groundbreaking series can be felt in TV drama, from The Sopranos through to Lost. Here we relive its surreal appeal and ask six veterans of the show for their memories.”
Why Twyla Can’t Stay Away From Frank
“Tharp – who has been creating dances to Sinatra recordings since 1976, when she created the infamous duet Once More, Frank, for herself and Mikhail Baryshnikov – has complicated reasons for returning to this music, one more time.”
Why Women Novelists Don’t Lighten Up
“Most great novelists have been brilliant at comedy as well as tragedy. And this is no less true of Jane Austen and George Eliot than it is of Tolstoy and Dickens. Recently, however, there does seem to have been a movement away from comedy in fiction, a growing feeling that, in order to be ‘serious’, novels have to be dark in tone. And, arguably, women have been affected by this much more than men, because of the pronounced divide in women’s fiction between frothy, commercial ‘chicklit’ and more serious, ‘literary’ work.”
A Footballer Tries Rehearsing With The Royal Ballet
“Top footballers train for two to three hours a day and might do an hour’s work in the gym after that. Their counterparts in ballet kick off with an hour’s Pilates, followed by a 90-minute warm-up and up to six hours’ rehearsal. And perhaps a two-hour performance in the evening. … Football is hard, but ballet is evil.”
When Dance Companies Practice Cultural Diplomacy
“As an effort to reach nontraditional audiences in countries that might not have entirely favorable ideas about the United States, DanceMotion USA, as the State Department project is called, was making headway” on a South African visit. But “breaching fundamental cultural and social differences is not just a matter of good intentions and good will.”
Original, R-Rated Grease Gets Its Chicago Accent Back
“‘Grease’ was first performed in 1971 in the original Kingston Mines Theatre…. From there, it conquered the world on stage and screen, but the content changed drastically and its teenage characters became less Chicago critters and more generic. Now, they’re coming back home.”
One Reason We Need Librarians: To Teach Research Skills
“Closing libraries is always a bad idea, but for the Google generation, it could be disastrous. In a time when information literacy is increasingly crucial to life and work, not teaching kids how to search for information is like sending them out into the world without knowing how to read.” Librarians can help — but only if they have jobs.
And The Ugliest Building In Boston Is … City Hall!
“I’m against tearing things down just because we happen not to like their looks. What you do with ugly buildings is live with them, add to them, give them a new face or a new use, and treat them with disrespect — not with murder.” The architecture of Boston City Hall is a magnet for disrespect.