“And yet talking to [company artistic director] Natalia [Kaliada] feels like stepping into a DeLorean and speeding back 30 years in time. “Longer. … This isn’t like Russia in the 80s. It’s Russia in 1937. These mass arrests. People being disappeared. It’s the purges.'”
Tag: 04.03.11
Seattle’s Women Directors Step It Up
“A quiet revolution (or is it an evolution?) has been unfolding in Seattle theater. On stages and in rehearsal halls, more and more women directors are running the show — and, in many cases, the theater too.”
HarperCollins Limits Library EBook Lending To 26 Times? Here Are Some Stats
“If you look at checkout statistics for Seattle Public Library, it’s clear that there are a lot of well-loved books in the system. Over the past three years, the average number of checkouts per book per year has been 23, but almost 300,000 books were checked out 26 times or more. And 6,759 circulating books for children and adults have been checked out 100 times or more.”
What Controls Your Dreams? Your ‘Protoconscious’
“This dreaming self isn’t just responding to life (as Freudians would have it), but rehearsing for life. And dreams’ emotional content can be a window into our own makeup. On average, 30 percent of our dreams are anxious. … Perhaps we’re biologically programmed to be anxious one-third of the time.”
The ‘Good Cop’ Of Atheist Authors
AC Grayling has always tended to be … [less] coldly clinical in tone than Richard Dawkins, less aggressively combative than Christopher Hitchens.” As he observes, “how can you be a militant atheist? How can you be militant non-stamp collector? … It’s like sleeping furiously. It’s just wrong.”
Israeli Authors Join Campaign To Keep Arab Bookseller In Jerusalem
Over the last 13 years, Munther Fahmi “has created what has been described as ‘the only decent English-language bookshop in the country’.” During that time, he has been living in his native city on a series of tourist visas after his permanent residency lapsed while he was abroad. Now the Israeli government is threatening not to renew those visas, leading to a public campaign on Fahmi’s behalf.
After 40 Years SF American Conservatory Theatre Producing Director Steps Down
“Having arrived in 1971 for what was supposed to be a one-year stage-managing job, James Haire stayed on to become ACT’s production manager in 1985 and producing director in 1994, working with all three of its artistic directors, founder William Ball, Edward Hastings and Carey Perloff.”
Why Do We Still Hang On To Old Ideas About Language?
“People who readily accept the principles of modern economics, psychology and biology still cling to notions about language that are as antiquated as a belief in physiÂocracy or leeching.”
What If The Stuckists Are Right About Contemporary British Art?
“There is a palpable tension between painters and the current – inaccurate – British idea of what modern art is. If you reject the notion that physical skill, natural talent or technical training have any value as art in themselves, then painters are screwed.”
When It’s Better When The Audience Gets Loud
“Are there times when talking in a theater is justified, even necessary? There might just be certain genres that lend themselves to the loud-crowd experience.”