“[Here] is the dirty secret of anomalous phenomena like telepathy and clairvoyance: They’ve been demonstrated dozens of times, often by reputable scientists [in peer-reviewed studies]. … Why, then, do serious scientists dismiss the possibility of psi? Why do rational people assume that parapsychology is bullshit? Because these exciting results have consistently failed the test of replication.”
Tag: 11.15.10
Atlanta Ballet Brings Back Live Music
The company, which cut live music in 2006 due to a budget crisis, will use an orchestra for its annual run of Nutcracker and “other programs demanding live music” through at least 2012 – thanks to a donation from a board member.
Louvre Asks Citizens to Donate Toward Saving Painting for France
“For the first time in its 217-year history France’s celebrated Louvre museum is asking art lovers to dig deep into their pockets to raise €1m (£846,000) to buy a 16th-century masterpiece” – Les Trois Grâces (1531) by Lucas Cranach the Elder.
New Turkish Action Thriller Could Damage Mideast International Relations
The Valley of the Wolves franchise covers the continuing adventures of “a nationalist undercover agent – Turkey’s answer to James Bond and Rambo – who takes on Turkey’s enemies.” The latest installment, opening in January, sees our hero on a mission of revenge for Israel’s attack of the Gaza flotilla – a plot that could harm already tense relations with Israel.
Why Would Jennifer Homans Declare Ballet Dead?
Claudia LaRocco: “I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the critical impulse to proclaim an art form kaput. I understand it even less bookending a 550-page tome dedicated to that same form. Perhaps it is best seen as a railing against one’s own mortality. Critics age, too, and for some of them the world that helped inspire their creative identity diminishes as they do, replaced by new generations who depart from what they held most dear.”
Is Louisville Orchestra Management Threatening Bankruptcy as a Negotiating Tactic?
“Contract talks between the Louisville Orchestra and its musicians struck a discordant note Monday, as representatives of the musicians’ union said the orchestra was threatening bankruptcy if the union did not agree to significant cuts and concessions.”
Frederick Law Olmsted Was a Public Health Pioneer (Who Knew?)
We know him as the father of American landscape architecture and the designer of North America’s first great urban parks. But Olmsted was the Union Army’s chief sanitation officer for two years during the Civil War, and the experience influenced his entire career.
Jordan’s Number One Source for Banned Books
“At Sami Abu Hossein’s cramped bookstore, the hundred or so book titles listed on a wall aren’t bestsellers. They’re banned. … ‘There are three no-nos,’ the owner of Al Taliya Books explains with a big smile. ‘Sex, politics and religion. Unfortunately, that’s all anyone ever wants to read about’.” (His top seller: The Satanic Verses.)
In Praise of Sweat on Stage
Bella Todd: “On one level it’s just the body’s natural response to hot lights and the audience’s critical gaze, but … I realised you can fake blood and tears on stage, but you can’t sham a bead of sweat oozing from a pore. … [A]bove all I think I value sweat as a simple signifier of ‘realness’.”
Destroying iPads for the Sake of Art
“When does an iPhone or an iPad cease to be a mere consumer gadget and enter the rarefied world of visual art? How about when someone willfully destroys it, turning it into an abstract, brutalized husk of its former self?”