“So the fountain of youth may in fact be the flood of chemicals in our brain that processes both internal and external messages about old age and dutifully passes them on to our joints, blood vessels and vital organs. Perhaps it’s time to start noticing these cerebral downloads and disregard the disempowering ones.”
Tag: 08.26.09
Epic Fail: A New Play About The Stock Trader Who Made History’s Biggest Losses
“Le Roman d’un trader (Story of a Trader), a comedy loosely based on the multi-billion euro losses blamed on SocGen trader Jerome Kerviel in 2008, will run at the Nice theatre for three weeks from September 23.”
Drama Wins At Britain’s Channel Four (As Big Brother Loses)
“Channel 4 is to boost its drama budget by £20 million a year as part of a renewed commitment to the genre, following its decision to axe Big Brother from its schedules.”
In Recession, Liberal Arts Colleges See Plunge In Demand
“Several schools reported a falloff in applications because of the economic downturn, and some struggled to fill the freshman class.” Says the president of “Great Books” school St. John’s, “People all think that in a bad economy, they need skills for a job. What they don’t realize is that a liberal arts education will give them skills for life, and that will get them a job.”
The New Literacy
“The fact that students today almost always write for an audience (something virtually no one in my generation did) gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing.”
British Design Dead? Not So Fast!
“Over the past quarter of a century, the public sector in Britain has declined while the private sector has boomed. And, as investment in public sector design has dropped, so retail design has enjoyed a field day. Today, there are inspired British designers working in all sorts of areas.”
Male Bellydancer Achieves Ballet-Level Discipline
Reactions to the Berlin-based Mehmet Sasmaz – a/k/a “Zadiel” – have run a wide gamut: consternation from his Turkish immigrant parents, enthusiasm from European audiences, “culture shock for Turkish men from small villages”, admiration from students who flock to work with him. As for his devotion to what most people see as a feminine art form: “my audience may not realize it but what I am doing is extremely traditional.”
LACMA Film Program Saved At Least Till Next June, Thanks To Big Donations
“The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., which organizes the annual Golden Globe Awards, and Time Warner Cable, in association with Ovation TV, have each agreed to put up $75,000 toward the LACMA film program, which had been scheduled to close in October. In addition, Time Warner Cable and Ovation said that they will spend more than $1.5 million to market the film program across their multiple media platforms, both locally and nationally.”
Is Mark Morris Losing His Mojo?
“In Morris’s latest efforts, the insight into the relationship between music and dance is still there, as are the brilliance of construction, the imagination, the naughty-boy wit and its opposite: acknowledgement of loss and mortality. …What’s missing in the newer works is Morris’s once-surging desire to choreograph. How did this happen?” Tobi Tobias has some ideas …
Bibliotheca Alexandrina: Would You Like Fries With That?
“[W]hereas the old Egyptian library offered a rich diet of philosophy and history to the greatest thinkers of its age including Euclid, Archimedes, and Herophilus, the modern Bibliotheca Alexandrina is coming in for harsh criticism for serving up a very different kind of fare. A row has erupted over the decision to build a food court at the heart of Egypt’s self-proclaimed ‘window on the world’, with campaigners accusing the Bibliotheca’s trustees of selling out the library’s venerable legacy for short-term profit.”