“Spark, who won armfuls of literary awards during her lifetime but who the Booker always eluded, is shortlisted for her story of a bored accountant whose search for adventure and sex on holiday becomes a journey to self-destruction. The Scottish novelist, biographer, poet and playwright is one of four women” on the six-author list.
Tag: 03.25.10
When Classical Music Is Out Of Context
“The same person who is able to sit in silence in a darkened concert hall while a symphony orchestra plays or clap along when a bunch of people start dancing to ‘Shout’ in a train station may be at a loss when presented with classical music in the absence of any markers indicating what he or she is supposed to make of it.”
Urban Beautification/Graffiti Trend: Yarnbombing
In cities dotting the globe, “rogue knitters … have taken their ‘yarnbombing’ to the street to brighten the cityscape.” One Philadelphia yarnbomber “ties crocheted flowers to lampposts, wraps bike racks with rainbow-colored covers, and gave the Rocky statue a scarf.”
The Art Of The Stage Tattoo
“For Naomi Iizuka’s ‘Concerning Strange Devices From the Distant West,'” at Berkeley Rep, the design “covering actor Johnny Wu is a two-piece bodysuit collaboration between Maggi Yule’s costume shop at the Rep and a film effects studio in Los Angeles. … Often, the process is more akin to regular tattoo artistry.”
On Appreciating The Glory Days While You’re Having Them
“[B]ack in the day,” Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis “was the dramaturge of Eureka Theater, right here in San Francisco. Tony Taccone, currently artistic director of the Berkeley Rep, was also the artistic director of the Eureka. There was ferment, of many kinds, and ferment is not nearly as much fun at the time as it is later.”
Mass. Governor Reflects On His Jazz Musician Dad
“‘My father’s first love was his music, and as a child, candidly, I resented that,’ Governor Patrick … told a crowd at Berklee College of Music last night as he dedicated his father’s musical collection to the school. ‘I didn’t understand it because I missed him as a father.'”
How James Levine’s Absences Are Harming The BSO
“Baton interchangeability is a convenient myth. … For any orchestra, the leader comes to represent the collective image and aspirations of the institution as a whole. In this case, the orchestra also simply sounds different when Levine is there, independent of his particular interpretive ideas about a given work.”
Following NYC’s Lead, Could LA Lessen The Car’s Power?
“[A]s more people choose to live along [our] boulevards as the city grows denser — and as pedestrians and cyclists began to take back sections of them for their own use — we are realizing that along the edges of those traffic arteries is a significant collection of public land waiting to be rediscovered, re-inhabited and redesigned.”
Survey: 3-D Movie Ticket Prices Are Climbing
“[O]n average, [movie theaters] are raising ticket prices for 3-D movies by 8% this weekend. The price of a movie in 3-D on large format Imax screens is going up even faster, rising an average 10% for adults and 12% for children. … [D]espite the economic downturn, movie ticket prices continue to rise, with 3-D leading the way.”
Mission: Obsess Over Continuity, Post Gotchas Online
“All movie sets have nitpickers. They were ‘script girls,’ early on. Now they’re ‘script supervisors.’ They ward off wobbles that make movies less believable. But the Internet has stirred up a nest of similarly obsessed volunteers. They nitpick the nitpickers.” Sort of the way Monk would, if he knew how to operate the remote.