“Without detracting from Jonathan Franzen, I think we can say it would not have received this trifecta of plaudits, largely because we don’t ascribe literary authority as freely to women as men, and our models of literary greatness remain primarily male (and white).”
Tag: 09.14.10
New Foundation Invests In Atlanta Arts Journalism
The stated mission of Possible Futures, a private nonprofit, is to nurture Atlanta culture and educate the public through the support and presentation of artists, writers and performers.
The Ballet Conceived in the Bathtub
“The bath is a great place for inspiration. The Greek mathematician Archimedes discovered the law of hydrostatics in it. The choreographer Frederick Ashton also had one of his major lightbulb moments while having a soak, idly listening to the radio in 1947 when a new piece of music came on.”
Harold Gould, 86, Ubiquitous Character Actor
Movie fans will remember him as Woody Allan’s rival in Love and Death or Kid Twist in The Sting. For one generation of television viewers he’ll always be Rhoda Morgenstern’s father; for another, he’s Golden Girl Rose Nylund’s boyfriend. Yet over a five-decade career, he was in dozens of films and TV shows – and dozens of plays, which were his great love.
Brian Eno on His New ‘Sound-Only Movies’
“Mostly the pieces on this album resulted not from ‘composition’ in the classical sense, but from improvisation. The improvisations are not attempts to end up with a song, but rather with a landscape, a feeling of a place and perhaps the suggestion of an event … there is no singer, no narrator, no guide as to what you ought to be feeling.”
LA’s Mex-Am Arts Center to Open April 2011
“Several years in the works, downtown Los Angeles’ new Mexican American cultural center, known as LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, has set an opening date for April 15, 2011.”
The Quran, the Bible, and Confirmation Bias
How can some observers claim that the Muslim scripture carries a message of peace while others argue that the book is irredeemably warlike? The same way they can do it with the Bible, of course: “[the human] tendency to latch onto evidence consistent with your worldview and ignore or downplay contrary evidence.”
Hollywood Studio and Mexican TV Network Plan Movies Aimed at US Hispanics
“Lionsgate and Mexican media conglomerate Televisa are joining forces to launch Pantelion Film, geared at Hispanic moviegoers in the U.S., the two companies announced on Tuesday. Lionsgate has made a mint targeting African-American audiences through its collaborations with Tyler Perry. The studio is clearly hoping that it will be able to find a Spanish-speaking answer to Madea.”
Creativity and the Power of Two
“For hundreds of years, science and culture have focused on the self. We talk of self-expression, self-realization. … What makes creative relationships work? How do two people – who may be perfectly capable and talented on their own – explode into innovation, discovery, and brilliance when working together?”
Social Climbing, Transcended: Why the Rich Become Arts Patrons
“[P]eople get involved through different channels – being recruited, wanting to know somebody … They go to the performance, they see how people are responding, they see how great this is, they see how much better off the world is to have this. They start taking on more noble ideas of what they’re doing, which makes them feel better about themselves. Not a bad thing.”