“I think it’s all one big ball of wax by now. I think that there is very little difference anymore between how I write online and how I write in the pages of magazines or when I speak. … When somebody is hearing, reading, seeing me they have a sense that they’re getting at what I might really be. Even though the pervert that is often out on Instagram might not seem like me, it’s me. And my wife approves of about eighty percent of those pictures.”
Tag: 09.26.16
Marcel Duchamp’s Mesmerizing Art For Turntables
“In 1935, Marcel Duchamp set up a booth at the Concours Lépine, a French fair for inventors promoting their latest gadgets that still occurs to this day. In between a stand of instant vegetable choppers and another of trash compactors, the Surrealist debuted a series of objects merging his interests in science and art: his Rotoreliefs, decorated discs made to spin on a turntable as optical entertainment.”
Now We Can Hear The First-Ever Computer Music – And The Computer Was Made By Alan Turing
“Researchers in New Zealand say they have restored the first recording of computer-generated music, created in 1951 on a gigantic contraption built by the British computer scientist Alan Turing.”
Busting Five Arts-Related Myths – Some Believed *By* The Audience, Others *About* It
“Myth 1: Everyone wants to take part in arts activities. …”
Remembering The Old Metropolitan Opera House (It Wasn’t All Wonderful)
“The relatively confined space in that crowded part of the city [just south of Times Square] meant that the old Met had a glorious auditorium with excellent acoustics and sightlines that often made it easier to see other audience members than the stage. It had very little space surrounding the stage, meaning that scenery sometimes had to be put out on the street. … Things were so tight that the chorus often rehearsed in Sherry’s, the restaurant in the old opera house.”
The Jewish-American Accent Fascinates Linguists
“But is really a religious or ethnic thing? Can we call it a ‘Jewish accent’ rather than, say, a ‘New York accent’? Scholars say, yes, there is an American Jewish accent, but it’s complicated.”
Flemish Old-Master Canvas Found Dumped In Storeroom
“The piece is a rare preparatory oil study for one of [Jacob] Jordaens’ best known works, Atalanta & Meleager, which hangs in the Prado Museum in Madrid.” The painting, now estimated to be worth up to £3 million, had been abandoned in a storeroom at the Swansea Museum in Wales.”
Should Middle-Aged Opera Singers Really Be Playing A Babe Magnet Like Don Giovanni? Of Course, Say Middle-Aged Opera Singers
Christopher Purves: “I think it’s much more interesting for the audience to watch a couple of old duffers trying to negotiate their way round this opera. … [Giovanni] exudes danger, mature sex appeal, total self-confidence, even though he’s no longer young.”
The ‘Godfather Of Gore’, Filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis, Dead At 87
“With his 1963 film Blood Feast, Lewis is widely credited with pioneering the splatter genre, despite it being considered ‘an insult even to the most puerile and salacious of audiences’ in a Variety review. A later critique described it as ‘one of the important releases in film history, ushering in a new acceptance of explicit violence that was obviously just waiting to be exploited’.”
Why Is Tenure Important? It Changes What Professors Tell Us Is True
“When researchers get the message that they better not produce data that might offend the powerful, they end up telling us not what is true, but what we want to hear. Policy separates from reality, and we end up with waste and poor outcomes in education, healthcare, economics, and the justice system. Good policy cannot be built on comfortable fantasies.”