April 15, 2013
Mozart in Turkey: parts biography, history, documentary, and performance
Mozart in Turkey is film made of three distinct, but related, elements. First, it is a look into Mozart at the time of his courting Constanze, a bit on his new patron, the "enlightened monarch" Joseph II, and other influences, including the Turkish music and culture, along with thoughts on Mozart's opera as a work created in the Age of Enlightenment, all through the running commentary by opera director Elijah Moshinsky, who also interviews Alev Lytle Croutier, the author of Harem: The World Behind the Veil. Then there is the production of an opera in Turkey, specifically set in and around the Topkapi Palace (virtual tour; Wikipedia). And the last piece is the performance of Die Entführung aus dem Serail, or The Abduction from the Seraglio. You can watch the entire film online on Vimeo, thanks to Directors Cut Films.
Batman vs Eggman
A1reviews
PUCK MAN HAD HIS NAME CHANGED IN TRANSLATION TO PREVENT IT BEING DETOURNED INTO "FUCK MAN".
This is the key to everything I know. From this point on, I cannot help you.
A1reviews, the eminently quotable tumblr where thecatamites (previously 1,2) reviews videogames (er, sometimes).
This is the key to everything I know. From this point on, I cannot help you.
A1reviews, the eminently quotable tumblr where thecatamites (previously 1,2) reviews videogames (er, sometimes).
Silicon Valley's Other Entrepreneurs: Sex Workers
In a quiet cafe outside San Francisco, "Josephine" -- a local prostitute -- arranges a collection of t-shirts across the table. They're emblazoned with phrases like "Winter is Coming" and "Geeks Make Better Lovers." She wears them in her online ads to catch the eye of the area's well-off engineers and programmers.
Career Arc: The Strokes
From Is This It to is this it? "The Strokes presently occupy a dubious place in pop culture: They're a legacy band generally considered to be important in contemporary rock history, but whose moment in time is otherwise perceived to have long since passed."
I need tungsten to live
Fan of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea? Check out Licorice Root Orchestra.
Their debut album is a weird, hypnotic masterpiece. Licorice Root Orchestra was an obscure band out of Newark, DE. They echo shades of Neutral Milk Hotel, John Lennon, Brian Wilson, Spacemen 3 and Marc Bolan. [more inside]
Explosions at Boston Marathon Finish Line
"At the finish line of the Boston Marathon, two explosions have left multiple people injured."
via ParadisePost. CBS Boston has a live video feed up of the finish line.
"...the memory of a blue door with a small wired glass..."
"Two years ago, I wrote a post about Rockland County Psychiatric Center, an abandoned insane asylum complex that is easily one of the most haunting places I’ve ever scouted. To my amazement, more than 250 comments have since been left by former patients, doctors and nurses, and residents ... I wanted to share a selection of these with you, to allow those who knew Rockland Psych firsthand to tell its story." (Scouting NY, previously)
DO NOT TOUCH
"After 50 years of pointing and clicking, we are celebrating the nearing end of the computer cursor with a music video where all our cursors can be seen together for one last time." (NSFW)
Joining the Ranks: Demystifying Harvard's Tenure System
'“The ad hoc process is greatly shrouded in mystery; remarkably little is written about it,” says current Senior Vice Provost for Faculty Diversity and Development Judith D. Singer. She smirks wryly as she swigs coffee from her mug, as if this is something she’s explained a hundred times before. “What the ad hoc process does is it takes a recommendation that has come up out of a department, been through a dean, and says, ‘Let’s look at this with a fresh set of eyes. Let’s look at the totality of the evidence and make a dispassionate decision about whether the recommendations that have come up are really in the best interest of the University,’” says Singer.'
The Day Care Dilemma
"Trusting your child with someone else is one of the hardest things that a parent has to do — and in the United States, it’s harder still, because American day care is a mess. About 8.2 million kids—about 40 percent of children under five — spend at least part of their week in the care of somebody other than a parent. Most of them are in centers, although a sizable minority attend home day cares.... In other countries, such services are subsidized and well-regulated. In the United States, despite the fact that work and family life has changed profoundly in recent decades, we lack anything resembling an actual child care system. Excellent day cares are available, of course, if you have the money to pay for them and the luck to secure a spot. But the overall quality is wildly uneven and barely monitored, and at the lower end, it’s Dickensian."
Andrey Zvyagintsev's Elena, The Apocalypse, and Moscow's Mosques
Zvyagintsev claims that the idea for Elena originated with an invitation from the British producer, Oliver Dungey, to participate in a multinational project in which four directors from different hemispheres would each produce a film about the apocalypse. Zvyagintsev ultimately bowed out of the project, but the film that resulted is certainly eschatological. Russian culture has a long tradition of allusions to the Book of Revelation - Tolstoy's Pierre Bezukhov is obsessed with the idea that Napoleon is the Antichrist and many of Dostoevsky's characters read the last book of the Bible - and Zvyagintsev was a natural fit to take up the theme. [more inside]
"solved the problems of both journalism and advertising at once"
Does BuzzFeed Know The Secret? The National Republican Congressional Committee seems to think so, since they redesigned their website. But they're just following BuzzFeed's advice. [more inside]
Where is life?
"The magic of nature’s alchemy."
Alchemy is a stunningly beautiful 4k HD timelapse of a year's worth of season changes in American West. [via]
Woman Photographs Herself Receiving Strange Looks in Public
Memphis-based photographer Haley Morris-Cafiero has long been aware of strangers making fun of her behind her back due to her size. So aware, in fact, that she has turned the whole concept into a full-blown photography project. Titled Wait Watchers, the series consists of Morris-Cafiero’s self-portraits in public in which strangers can be seen in the background giving her strange looks and/or laughing. More photos at her website.
This bus is going to Cuba
" A 14-year-old ninth grader with no history of legal trouble, McKee stole his father’s .22-caliber revolver and headed for the Tampa airport. Once there, he pulled the gun on a National ticket agent and said, “I’m hijacking you and the plane, let’s go.” Once he had been escorted to the waiting Boeing 727, he demanded passage to Sweden. When advised that the plane didn’t have the range necessary to cross the Atlantic, however, McKee lost his focus and became easily manipulated. The captain first convinced the teen to release all of the passengers, then tricked him into stepping out of the plane to continue the negotiations. Once he unwisely exited the jet, McKee was overpowered by waiting security officers." -- Stories and news items from the days when airplane hijackings were still relatively innocent affairs, before 9/11 changed everything, on the skyjacker of the day Tumblr.
Better than sex?
Why does music feel so good? "Music moves people of all cultures, in a way that doesn’t seem to happen with other animals. Nobody really understands why listening to music — which, unlike sex or food, has no intrinsic value — can trigger such profoundly rewarding experiences. Salimpoor and other neuroscientists are trying to figure it out with the help of brain scanners."
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