“With a rich accumulation of poems, metafictions and other unclassifiable prose works, … he superimposed a psychic overlay on the city’s mundane streets and terraces, its feuds and factions, the aggravations and atrocities of the bloody 30-year Troubles.” – The Guardian
Tag: 10.06.19
Walt Whitman Had Troubling Views. So Why Is He Still Venerated?
“The question goes beyond whether or not Whitman should be banished from the literary forum, if such a thing were even possible. If America can be said to have a national poet, if “O Captain! My Captain!” is still memorized by schoolchildren, then the fact of Whitman is burned into America’s signature.” – Los Angeles Review of Books
Artist Matthew Wong, Innovative Painter Of Landscapes, Dead By Suicide At 35
“With just three solo shows and a handful of star turns in group exhibitions, Wong established himself as a quicksilver talent, with an almost preternatural sense for creating gripping, idiosyncratic scenes, which he sometimes populated with a solitary figure (or merely a trace of one).” – ARTnews
The Glastonbury Festival Isn’t Until Next June. But Tickets Sell Out In 34 Minutes
A record number of people had registered to be eligible for the sale, which started at 9am on Sunday and was finished in little over 30 minutes. A record 2.4 million people signed up to have a chance of securing a ticket. – The Guardian
Addicted To Your Screens? It’s Your Own Fault!
“We talk about addiction, but when it comes to Candy Crush, really? Facebook? We’re not freebasing Facebook. We’re not injecting Instagram here,” Mr. Eyal said one morning over croissants at New York’s Bryant Park. “These are things we can do something about, but we love to think the technology is doing it to us.” – The New York Times
Why Hasn’t A Lauren Gunderson Play Been On Broadway Yet?
It’s a little weird – well, one might call it something other than weird, but it also is weird – that Lauren Gunderson, the most produced playwright in the U.S. aside from Shakespeare, hasn’t been on Broadway. As a matter of fact, she’s rarely produced in NY at all. So: “Is New York City ready for the rest of America’s favorite playwright?” – Slate
Martin Scorsese Says Marvel Movies Aren’t Films; Sam Jackson Begs To Differ
Scorsese says Marvel movies aren’t cinema, but are more like theme parks. Jackson (who is, famously, Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe): “That’s like saying, ‘Bugs Bunny ain’t funny. … Everybody’s got an opinion, so it’s OK. It’s not going to stop anyone from making movies.” – Los Angeles Times
Will Robert Indiana’s Home Ever Become The Museum He Envisioned?
The Maine island where Indiana found a home isn’t quite into it. “There are concerns here on the island about just what an Indiana museum might entail. Who would it attract? What sort of people would be running it? How might the character of the island, which already doubles in population when the ‘summer people’ arrive, be affected?” – The New York Times
Arts Organizations Are Kicking Opioid Money And Oil Money To The Curb, But What About Oligarchs?
Russian oligarchs have sat on the board of the Guggenheim and given money to the Kennedy Center. They’ve funded the New Museum and historic parks in the U.S. At least, they’ve done all that until (& sometimes after) their companies are sanctioned by the U.S. This “soft power” money is approved by the Kremlin and appreciated by strapped arts institutions. “The Russian giving, and the strained relations between the countries, has created something of a minefield for American cultural organizations.” – The New York Times
What Should Performers Do When Audience Members Are Using Their Phones?
Just a few nights after Anne-Sophie Mutter stopped a concert to tell a woman in the front row to stop filming, actor Joshua Henry, star of a new Off Broadway musical called The Wrong Man, tried to get a man in onstage seating to quit filming. The man paid no attention. So Henry “reached into the seats, deftly grabbed the phone out of the man’s hand, wagged it disapprovingly, and tossed it under a riser — all mid-song, without skipping a beat. ‘I knew I had to do something,’ he explained later.” – The New York Times