“Where do I find it all? In my character. Never in myself. I will never, never use something from my own life. I feel it is too dangerous. If you wake up an old pain, for example, because you have to cry in a scene, then how do you put that pain back to sleep again?”
Tag: 12.30.09
Holidays Are No Holiday For Sugar Plums, House Managers
“London alone is home to more than 50 Christmas shows, including a pair of Nutcrackers, four Cinderellas and five Christmas Carols — not to mention the 25 or so musicals that stop only on Christmas day. That means doormen, box-office staff, actors, dancers, directors, musicians and many more who worked until late on Christmas Eve….”
Art Energy In ’09 Found At Small Venues, Not Big Museums
“With the major museums gasping for cash like whales beached on a dropping economic tide, and the federal government tightening the reins on culture spending, it was the little fish that were still swishing their tails and swimming free.”
McNally-Robinson Booksellers Declares Bankruptcy
“McNally-Robinson was celebrated as a rare success story in the independent book world, expanding when other stores were closing, and even being named 2009 Bookseller of the Year by the Canadian Bookseller Association.”
Remembering Stars Broadway Lost In ’09
Karl Malden, Natasha Richardson, Dom DeLuise, Larry Gelbart and Bea Arthur in their own words.
On Music Site, The Price Of A Download Is Watching An Ad
FreeAllMusic.com “will allow users to download songs, which may be copied and shared — unencumbered, in other words, by digital rights management restrictions.” With two of the four major labels signed on, the site “hopes to draw ‘casual pirates who, for whatever reason, are not paying for music.'”
Why Da Vinci Code Is Decade’s 2nd-Most Important Work
“In terms of craft, the best that could be said for The Da Vinci Code was that it cleared the basic hurdle of activating a reader’s desire to know what will happen next.” Many books did better artistically — but Dan Brown’s novel had a cultural and commercial reach that others couldn’t even approach.
Jackson, Pacino, Miss Piggy Enter National Film Registry
“Thriller,” the 1983 Michael Jackson video, “is among the 25 motion pictures that have been selected this year for preservation by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.” The other films include “Dog Day Afternoon” (1975), “Pillow Talk” (1959) and “The Muppet Movie” (1979).
In Dance, The ’00s Were Gently Transformative (And Not)
Among the changes: “While waiting for the new savior, ballet has admitted the language of modern dance into its world and, very cautiously, sought solutions in the movement lexicons of non-European cultures.” Also: “In just a few years, YouTube has become an indispensable resource for the dance world.”
How The Decade’s Architecture Changed San Francisco
“In this city, the process of getting a project approved makes it easier to cut deals than to let architects do their best work, and too much of what’s been built is inept or cynical or both. Even so, the decade saw a heartening number of memorable additions to the landscape.”