“These days many companies are obsessed with fun. Software firms in Silicon Valley have installed rock-climbing walls in their reception areas and put inflatable animals in their offices. Wal-Mart orders its cashiers to smile at all and sundry. The cult of fun has spread like some disgusting haemorrhagic disease.”
Tag: 09.16.10
Twitter Might Be Great Promotion, But Some Performers Find…
“Some stars are finding that Twitter may be great as a promotional tool or for reaching out to fans, but it also comes with a downside. Many celebrities have found that their tweets are being made fun of, or blow up in their faces.”
Did Australia’s Big Dance Companies Lose Their Way?
“Despite some sensational new works and great seasons with consistently high production values in recent years, the sector has lost its reputation for innovation, experimentation and, with rare exceptions, for renewing the 19th-century repertoire in entirely convincing ways.”
Gustavo Dudamel Talks About Building An Orchestra In LA
“We have a huge audience, built up over years. But, from this last season, we have begun to build a new audience, combining of course with the traditional one.”
U Of Iowa HiresMitchell Hirsch And Pelli To Replace Performing Arts Center
University of Iowa officials selected him and Pelli Clarke Pelli, a New Haven, Conn., firm, to replace the original Hancher structure lost to extensive flood damage in 2008.
Metacognition: Finding Where the Brain Decides What It Knows
Metacognition is when people “assess how confident they are in the cognitive processes in their own brain that produced [an] answer” – how sure they are about a given fact or whether someone is trustworthy. Some people are better at this than others, and “the reason seems connected to a bit of brain just behind the eyes.”
Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence Becomes an Actual Museum
The four-story house in Istanbul “is the real-life incarnation of the museum painstakingly assembled and detailed in his book The Museum of Innocence (2008). The institution … will house 83 wooden boxes [filled with items] related to the book’s 83 chapters.”
The Ancient City Underneath Phoenix
Until the 1400s, the Hohokam “flourished for centuries. They criss-crossed this desert valley with hundreds of miles of irrigation canals. They played ritualized games in ball courts throughout the city. An entire history began and ended in this place centuries before modern Phoenix existed.”
Arrow, Soca’s Top Star, Dead at 60
Alphonsus Cassell, known by his stage name, Arrow, “was among the best-known artists of Caribbean-born soca, a music derived from soul and calypso that emphasizes music over lyrics.” He shot to global fame with the 1982 hit “Hot Hot Hot.”
San Francisco Opera Makes Money (!) on Free Simulcasts
“The San Francisco Opera is far from the only opera company that has tried to build its audience with free outdoor simulcasts of performances. But it may be the only one that ekes out a small profit from them.”