Culture & Arts

The 36 Goldberg variations on the Bach harpsichord tune are copious, but apparently Neil LaBute wants to give those spins on a theme stiff competition. His theme: the battle of the sexes--only with The Way We Get By, at Second Stage Theatre, he doesn't so much involve a man and a woman battling as he sets Doug (Thomas Sadoski, a favorite LaBute player) and Beth (Amanda Seyfried) bickering.

These young Bickersons have just had great sex at the apartment she shares with the unseen but compulsively organized Kim. He's alone and restlessly pacing the living room floor, guzzling direct from a bottle and thinking a few minutes of television might settle him. The noise from the shopping channel he turns on is so loud that he shuts it off instantly but too late not to have awakened her and put their 80-minute contretemps in motion.

The first thing that throws them into conflict is his devotion to a signed Star Trek T-shirt of his she's wearing. The second is his abruptly calling a halt to a bout of fellatio she's initiated. She doesn't understand why, if their initial sexual encounter was so heatedly successful, he wouldn't want to pursue a second opportunity. He explains that once is for fun but twice suggests a more serious relationship he believes they should think through.

As they follow each other around Neil Patel's version of a tidily comfortable New York apartment, they have the occasional sympatico lull but mostly they argue--and argue even more intensely when LaBute reveals a connection between them that becomes a potential obstacle for their romantic bonding.

The revelation won't be explained here, but maybe it's acceptable to say that it threatens to turn the work into a modern-day update of John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. Well, okay, not really. Ford in his grave needn't resort to rapidly rotating, but he might want to emit a chuckle or two at this contemporary dilution of his bloody tragedy.

The major problem with The Way We Get By--as Doug or Beth might say, it's major-major--is that they're so insistently immature. The audience is expected, I think, to root for their getting through to each other. But they're both so unsophisticated in word and deed that the more appropriate response is wishing they'd listen to themselves and hear how unready either is for any lasting union. What else could anyone think when at a low point, their conversation consists of--I only paraphrase slightly here--"Shut up!" "You shut up!" "Shut up!" "You!" "You!" As the familiar saying goes, "Gimme a break."

It's probably not spoiling anyone's good time to say that Doug and Beth eventually reach an understanding and as a result go on a destructive celebration that, if nothing else does, confirms their need to grow up before they contemplate a genuine adult relationship.

Sadoski and Seyfried are unquestionably a handsome couple, and they give themselves over to the script--including the half-sentences and overlapping utterances LaBute ladles in. Director Leigh Silverman surely does the best she can for them, but the likes of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne couldn't make this one credible. (Not that the fabled couple would ever have tried.)

At the end of the day, what I resent most is the word "we" in the title. Few patrons attending to this juvenalia would recognize it as their own way of getting by. LaBute does specify that playing it safe is the way we get by, although the title implies that much of their behavior is indicative of generally getting by. The insult to intelligent grown-ups stands. LaBute has often written strong plays about young adults. This isn't one of them.
**********************
Simon Callow is not only a first-rate actor, he's an uncommonly practical one--not to mention an excellent author. Read his recent memoir, A Life in Pieces, if it's outstanding writing about the theater you're after.

His practicality emerges in the number of solo shows he's put together to cover times when other theater, film or television work isn't immediately on the schedule. Dickens, Shakespeare--he's surely impersonated them to great acclaim.

Now, he's added quite a different piece, at 59E59 Theatres: Tuesday's at Tesco's, which he didn't write--Emmanuel Darley did, and Matthew Hurt and Sarah Vermande translated from the French. How different is it? Plenty, even if it picks up on one of the emerging stories of the year--transgender men and women.

Oh, yes, that's how smart Callow is. He's wet a finger to test the zeitgeist and chosen to play Pauline--formerly Paul--who arrives on stage as dressed by set and costume designer Robin Don in modest suit with reddish top and as lighted by Chahine Yavroyan.

The blond Pauline chatters to the audience about the Tuesdays she prods her father, still intent on calling her Paul, to hit the local Tesco's for the week's shopping. She discusses the people she runs into and their treatment of her--the checkout man she prefers for his not dissing her when the nearby checkout woman does. She has other observations on herself to pass along, and during the 75 minutes that she unburdens herself, often histrionically, she probably says more than she needs to say to land the harmful details about her difficult life.

Every once in a while, she breaks into a wild dance step. What sets her heels moving is the music played on a stage-left piano by Conor Mitchell. Paying no mind to Pauline at all, Mitchell appears to be composing a piano concerto. His pertinence to the focal subject matter is anyone's guess.

As reliable as ever under Simon Stokes's direction, Callow suggests Pauline's strengths, weaknesses and continual tribulations. In the day of Bruce Jenner's revelations, Pauline certainly adds provocative thought to the currently improving but not yet settled LGBT discussion.

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For most people, coins are just things that jingle in one's pocket, accumulate in jars or feed parking meters. They are occasionally counted after a purchase but rarely the subject of close examination. Try telling that to Joel Iskowitz, an artist at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia since 2006, who calls coins "an ambassador to the rest of the world. They can be eloquent and iconic in telling a story" of American and world history. They "tell" that history through the front and back designs, and it is fine artists that the Mint often looks to hire in order to develop the images used on both sides of American coins and medallions.

Since 2003, the Mint's Artistic Infusion Program has solicited applications from fine artists across the country, not just portraitists or technicians who can engrave a presidential portrait. They don't need engravers - they already have those on staff - or even require the artist know something about relief sculpture. Many of the artists who have participated in the Artistic Infusion Program are sculptors who have demonstrated good design and representational art skills. More important to the Mint is that a participating artist "has a professional portfolio that includes published or publicly displayed art" and "derives a portion of his or her individual earned income from his or her art or areas related to his or her art," according to its published eligibility requirements. Ed Moy, the now-retired director of the U.S. Mint, noted that the U.S. Mint needs "fresh ideas and visual images to challenge us, push out our boundaries, spark a new Renaissance and take us to the next level. This is a public art that everyone can enjoy," and it is a public art that comes to most people rather than requiring people to come to it.

Periodically, the Mint puts out a public call for artists to apply for the Artistic Infusion Program, the most recent was in January of 2014, submitting a resume, personal statement and between five and 10 samples of their work. Twenty-five of the applicants are then asked to submit a demonstration design for an actual Mint coin or medallion, for which they are paid $1,500. The application forms include two 8½" diameter circles, representing coins, in which to create drawings. For the 2010 applicants, the commemorative subject of the assigned coins was the founding of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607; the first drawing needed include a Native American, African and European figure, as well as the inscriptions "Jamestown" and "In God We Trust," while the second was a scenic depiction of the Jamestown settlement and surrounding areas that included structures, landscapes and seascapes.

Completed applications are graded on a numerical basis by a committee composed of engravers, sales and marketing staff and a lawyer who work for the U.S. Mint. "We look at composition and content, how the elements of text and images work together, the style, the planes, depths and dimensions," said John Mercanti, the Mint's recently retired chief engraver. In effect, the committee looks to see if an image, when reduced to six percent of its drawn size, looks good and has all the required elements. Selected artists are given a one-year contract as associate designers; if their contract is renewed, they may be upgraded to master designers. The Mint seeks to make the process of choosing images for new coins and medals competitive, so all artists in the program may prepare designs and are paid - $2,000 for those in the first two years, $2,500 for artists in the program between three and five years and $3,000 for those with six or more years of experience - regardless of whether or not their designs are used. In most instances, artists are given between four and six weeks to develop and submit their designs. Those artists whose images are selected receive a $5,000 bonus. Iskowitz stated that since he began working for the Mint "40 or so coins and medals have my images on them" - the minted piece will include the artist's initials in the corner - although he has offered far more designs than that. "I've probably earned between $20,000 and $40,000 a year since I started," he said.

Most assignments are for just one side of a coin - the head (obverse) or tail (reverse) - although some artists in the Mint's program have had their designs selected for both sides of a coin, doubling their payments.

Part of the reason that the U.S. Mint has looked for more artists is simply the fact that there are more coins and medals being produced. In the past, the government relied on the same set of circulating coins and just changed the dates from one year to the next. However, these days there are between 90 and 120 coins in various stages of the process of being designed and minted at any one time. Some of these are coins in general circulation, whose designs are updated or added, such as the 50 state quarters. Many of the others are commemorative coins or others honoring a certain group or individual. There are, for instance, coins honoring the Boy Scouts of America, Louis Braille, disabled veterans, First Ladies, the American bald eagles, all the U.S. presidents, national parks, the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the Marine Corps, Black Revolutionary War patriots, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, the American buffalo and numerous other themes. The U.S. Congress, which has the constitutional authority to regulate the nation's currency, passes a law once or twice a year to create a new or revised coin (or series of coins), setting the process in motion.

Iskowitz claimed that much of his time is spent not on a design itself but on researching the subject, which may involve travel, visits to museums and libraries, and speaking with people knowledgeable in the subject of the design. For a Mark Twain commemorative medal, for instance, "I went to the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut and spoke with several of the guides." He added that the "great challenge" of working for the Mint is accumulating and then reducing a great deal of information into a distilled image."

When Thomas S. Cleveland, a watercolor artist who operates his own art school teacher in Cypress, Texas and had been part of the Artistic Infusion Program for a number of years beginning in 2004, was given the assignment of designing a coin to honor Anna Harrison (wife of the ninth U.S.

President, William Henry Harrison) as part of the First Ladies series, the Mint enabled him to view a White House portrait of her. "I had to extrapolate from that portrait what she looked like younger," he said. "I used a student at my school as a model, posing her in a 19th century costume reading to other students. I read her history and found that her passion in life was teaching, so my design showed her reading to several children, one of whom was a Native American." That design was selected by the Mint and the Treasury Secretary, "but I still had to make some revisions, because the costume I used was about 30 years in the future from when she was First Lady." The Mint arranged for Cleveland to meet with a costume curator at the Smithsonian Institution who showed the artist more appropriate period clothing "and sent me some samples."

It can be frustrating for those in the Artistic Infusion Program to include everything they believe is significant into an image that will be at its largest (for the Congressional Medal of Honor) three inches in diameter, as well as for those sculptor-engravers who take the selected designs and try to make it into a relief image on a piece of metal. "Artists have to be cognizant of the next step," said Jim Licaretz, a sculptor who has worked as an engraver at the U.S. Mint since 2006. "Can you cut it with our machines? The cutters have certain sizes, and it may be impossible to machine certain details. You need minimal height."

The reasons that an associate designer's contract may not be renewed has less to do with the number of designs presented or accepted in a given year and more to do with whether or not the artist understands what works well on a small coin and what the engravers need in order to perform their work. "You've got to be on time, Iskowitz said, "and on the money, pardon the expression."

Engraving metal to be used for coins and medallions is an ancient profession, although it has been updated by digital three-dimensional modeling and scanning programs, and knowing how to work with these new tools has become part of the job requirement. "Understanding how to do the digital was more of a learning curve for me," said Phebe Hemphill, who worked as a doll- and figurine maker at Franklin Mint before joining the U.S. Mint in 2006.

Two separate committees - the Coinage Advisory Committee, which was set up at the same time as the Artistic Infusion Program to advise the Treasury Secretary on themes and designs of U.S. coins, and the Commission of Fine Arts, which was established by Congress in 1910 to advise government bodies on matters of design and aesthetics - evaluate the designs that the artists have submitted, making their recommendations to the director of the Mint. The two committees may arrive at the same decisions, but there often is a bit of can-you-add-this, can-you-enlarge-that, which adds to the workload. The director then takes the designs, the respective recommendations and his own recommendation to the Treasury Secretary for final approval. So far, the two Obama Administration Treasury Secretaries, Timothy Geithner and Jack Lew, have gone along with all of recommendations; the previous Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, disagreed once, choosing a different design for one of the Lincoln pennies in a bicentennial series.

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By Erin Lee Carr, Glamour

How do you say goodbye to your father? Erin Lee Carr, daughter of the New York Times' David Carr, did it by focusing on the wisdom he left behind.

I was in the passenger seat as my dad steered our family's SUV in the direction of my first internship, at Fox Searchlight Pictures. He ignored the car wedging into our lane and turned my way. "Who's your supervisor?" he asked. "Who's head of the company? What films of theirs do you like?"

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Family Man: David Carr, with Erin, center, and her twin, Meagan, when they were about four (Photo: Courtesy of Erin Lee Carr)

I mumbled something about how I'd loved the acerbic side of Juno, which the studio had put out about a year earlier. My dad shook his head, lit a cigarette, and said, "No one is going to take you seriously if you don't take the job seriously. Do your f--king homework."

I hadn't even started yet, but this was still a defining moment in my career. My dad's message stuck with me: Do the work and know what you're talking about.

To our family he was a wise, generous and devoted father. He had a remarkable voice, a raspy one that often ended in a laugh. To the world he was a famed media columnist for The New York Times, author of the memoir The Night of the Gun, and star of Page One, a documentary about the Times.

His life was colorful, with stints in restaurants and on drugs and, later, with babies and bylines. He often said to me and my twin sister, Meagan, "Everything good started with you." Being a dad to us and our little sister, Maddie, was a chief joy, in large part because it pulled him out of the depths of addiction and toward the man he would become.

I didn't know David the drug addict; I knew David the loving dad.

As I followed him into the media world (documentary film is my field), he counseled me on the best way to get my voice heard. "Don't be the first to speak," he would tell me. "But if you do, say something important."

I took notes every time we spoke on the phone about my work, and if he didn't hear the click of the keyboard, he'd ask why I wasn't committing his advice to paper (or pixels). The day before he died, I had a work issue and called to ask if he had five minutes to help me sort it out. His answer: "I always have time for you."

He was constantly typing, talking, learning, moving. He had a hunger for knowledge, trivial or monumental, and he expected me and my sisters to share that curiosity. When I was a teenager, he assigned books for us to read. He issued quizzes to ensure that our vocabulary was as extensive as he thought it should be. (The family later begged me to cut back on my use of copacetic.) He taught us to challenge information, places, and people -- and never, ever to settle for less than the best of anything. He never did.

The night of February 12, 2015, I watched my dad speak onstage in New York City to filmmaker Laura Poitras, journalist Glenn Greenwald, and (by way of video conference from Russia) government-secrets leaker Edward Snowden. After the talk was over, I sneaked backstage to give him a bear hug. He introduced me to Greenwald, who said, "Your dad is your biggest fan." I quickly replied, "I'm his."

We stepped outside, into the brutal winter hellscape that is February in New York City. My dad had quit smoking only four days before, and he looked exhausted. I gave him a hug and told him I loved him. I left for the subway; he got into a cab.

It was the last time anyone in our family would see him alive.

I got the call from my stepmom. My dad had been found unconscious on the floor at the Times. He hadn't been in the best of health. If you knew about his bout with cancer and years of substance abuse, you might have expected this day would come. But I never imagined it. To me, Dad was invincible.

I rushed to Mount Sinai Roosevelt hospital, sobbing in the cab as I called my best friend. When I paid the fare, my driver mumbled, "I'm sorry." I nodded but had no words.

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Big Fans: Erin and her dad at the 2012 US Open (Photo: David Carey)

I walked into the hospital and found out: It was over. My dad had died.

My stepmom and I went to his bedside, but before I could say goodbye, my phone started buzzing. Word had broken that my dad had passed away. Someone had tweeted about his death. I was filled with rage.

Couldn't I have at least 30 seconds to comprehend what had happened without having to hear the Internet's take?

Couldn't the loss of the most important man in my life be my own, if only for one quiet moment?

My stepmom and I raced to call my sisters, reaching them, thankfully, before the news went viral. It felt unfair to rush through the most difficult words I would ever say just so I could beat the Internet.

As I sat in the grief room, my phone still buzzing, I couldn't help but look at the things that were being said about my dad on Twitter. Over the course of the following week, countless tweets and beautifully crafted pieces of writing would appear on the Web and in print. For The Atlantic, my dad's friend and protégé Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a moving tribute called "King David," about how powerfully motivating it was to have someone like my dad rooting for him. The day after he died, my dad made the front page of The New York Times -- in Irish tribute, we hung it on our front door.

Hundreds flocked to his wake and funeral -- musicians, weirdos, writers, media tycoons, schoolteachers, coworkers, and gangsters. I realized how many roles my dad filled for other people. He was a friend, secret sharer, mentor, boss, ally. Several women (myself included) spoke about my dad's devotion to feminism. My father was one of seven kids from an Irish Catholic family -- he would have loved the attention.

The other day I got some good news and, wanting to share it, reflexively typed "dad" into my phone. There are moments in grief when the finality sets in, and here it was: I would never be able to hear his voice again. But I've realized, strangely, that instead of resenting the Internet, I'm grateful for it.

I can tap Dad's name into Twitter and be flooded with the lessons he shared with others, including some he never had a chance to share with me. I don't know what it's like to lose a parent who didn't lead a public life. I'm just glad my dad was out there in the world, leaving an impression on everyone he met.

The Internet can be intrusive, yes, but it can also be a voice of comfort -- and, in my case, a close friend leaning in to whisper, "You know how you thought your dad was the greatest guy in the world? You were right. Let me tell you why."

Erin Lee Carr is the director of the HBO documentary Thought Crimes.

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Recently, we've absolutely fallen in love with the incredible portraiture of Galiya Zhelnova. Reminiscent of photographers like Margarita Kareva, her images range from the ultra-sexy and NSFW, to surreal creations with a dream-like air to them, to straightforward headshots.

Both the quality and range of her photography really captivates us, and we think it will captivate you too. So, without further ado, take a tour through the portfolio of 500px photographer and 500px Prime contributor Galiya Zhelnova (Warning: A few of the images in this collection are not safe for work -- proceed with caution):

To see more of Galiya's work or license any of it for your next project, head over to her 500px account, take a tour through her 500px Prime store, or visit her VK profile.

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There was a day when poetry mattered in America. Indeed there was a time when its lyric phrases, its cadences, or the free flow of its blank verses could endow the entire nation with inspiration, or insight, or an arousing--if occasionally disturbing--emotional fervor. There was a day when poetry had a majestic power.

This month marks the 70th anniversary of what may be reckoned the most demonstrable attestation ever of poetry's once pervasive allure. On the evening of May 8, 1945 some 60 million Americans--a full half of the country's population--assembled around their radios to listen to what Carl Sandburg pronounced "one of the all-time great American poems." The nationwide gathering had been previously arranged by President Franklin Roosevelt. Shortly before his death shocked the nation, FDR had requested that a poetical reflection be broadcast to the nation--in fact, to the world--upon the defeat of Nazi Germany. When he was taken from them by a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, just as that victory was within sight, vast numbers of his fellow citizens required no scholarly prompting to make the heartrending association with Walt Whitman's ode to the loss of Lincoln found in "O Captain! My Captain!" Yes they remembered, in lines committed to memory since childhood, their leader's death came after "their ship had weathered every wrack" and their "fearful trip" was nearly done.

Nor were Americans in need of an introduction to the writer that FDR invited to prepare this commemorative composition. Norman Corwin would come to be crowned "the poet laureate of radio." Born into an immigrant family in Boston, Corwin started as a local news reporter. His passion for poetry became manifest when he covered a high school football game in verse. He graduated from hosting a small town poetry show to prominence as writer, director, and producer of a national broadcast that began on the CBS network in the late 1930s. The brightest stars of Hollywood clamored to play even the smallest role in one of his weekly "word orchestrations."

Corwin possessed a keen historical sense and comprehended, as well as anyone possibly could, the part that poetry had played in the American narrative. As early as 1770, when the enslaved 17-year-old Phillis Wheatley's widely read verses challenged the blithely held racist suppositions, works of poetry helped animate social, cultural, and political change. Sometimes--as when Oliver Wendell Holmes's "The Last Leaf" inspired the veteran pension act of 1832--these influences were positive, and occasionally less so. Kipling's extraordinarily popular and racialized "Take Up the White Man's Burden" contrived a convenient moral purpose for a brutal conflict in the Philippines and the entry of the United States as an imperial power in the Far East.

By the time Corwin hit the airwaves, the poetry of the lost generation had established a much more somber vision of war. The works of the "war poets" sold exceedingly well in the interwar period and Alan Seeger's "I have a Rendezvous with Death" was memorized reverentially by legions of young Americans--including John F. Kennedy, who deemed it his favorite poem--and helped engender a widespread skepticism about U.S. intervention in European affairs. Corwin's artistic assaults on fascism helped alter public opinion, while endearing him to the Roosevelt administration and ultimately winning him his VE Day assignment.

He titled his two hour commemoration--which was rebroadcast later in May--"On a Note of Triumph." and using the mellifluous voice of actor Martin Gable, he began triumphantly. "Take a bow GI / Take a bow little guy / The superman of tomorrow stands at the feet of you common men of this afternoon." Corwin had slight interest in American braggadocio; the victory belonged to the myriad peoples across the globe that had that had suffered and sacrificed. "From Newburyport to Vladivostok / You had what it took and you gave it." With the Pacific conflict yet to be resolved, with massive bloodshed inevitably to come, his Whitmanesque verses were far less celebratory than reflective. It was not enough for a people to be willing to die for freedom, they must engage in the more prosaic task of living for it. "It must be renewed, like soil after yielding good crops / must be rewound, like a faithful clock / exercised like a healthy muscle." A hard-won peace was not a lifelong commodity: "it is lent and leased / You can win a war today and lose the peace tomorrow / Win in the field and lose in the forum." Corwin concluded with a prayer--for the millions listening and for the countless millions to come:

Lord God of test tube and blueprint,
who joined molecules of dust and shook them till their name was Adam,
Who taught worms and stars how they could live together,
Appear now among the parliaments of the conquerors and give
instruction to their schemes:
Measure out new liberties so none shall suffer for his father's color
or credo of his choice:
Post proofs that brotherhood is not so wild a dream as those who
profit by postponing it pretend:
Sit at the treaty table and convoy the hopes of little peoples through
expected straights,
And press into the final seal a sign that peace will come for longer
than posterities can see ahead,
That man unto his fellow man shall be a friend forever.

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Minnesota Orchestra Principal Trombone R. Douglas Wright works with a Cuban trombone student at the Instituto Superior de Arte
Photo: Travis Anderson

Cultural diplomacy is what the policy wonks call it. On the ground in Havana with the Minnesota Orchestra, Marilyn C. Nelson, the orchestra's vice chair and tour underwriter, calls it love. There is no better way to describe the affection, admiration, generosity, appreciation, and sharing that took place between this impassioned orchestra and a joyous Cuban public.

In a jam-packed three days the orchestra gave two sold-out concerts at Teatro Nacional de Cuba, coached eager and admiring high school and college students, played a side-by-side concert with the Youth Orchestra of the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory, jammed with Cuban musicians into the wee hours in a night club, and performed at the residence of Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis, Chief of Mission of the U.S. lnterests Section. The itinerary hardly does justice to the euphoria that typified each event and the beaming faces that lit up the entire tour. The promise of normalization following President Obama's December 17 announcement made every interaction even more poignant, this being the first visit of a U.S. orchestra since that historic date.

Trombone quartet, Instituto Superior de Arte, Cuba
Video: Jesse Rosen

For Principal Trombone R. Douglas Wright, and no doubt many of his colleagues in the Minnesota Orchestra, the highlight of the tour was the interaction with Cuban students. An all-female trombone quartet from the Instituto Superior de Arte left him speechless, their performance being at such an accomplished level. Their fancy foot work made them even more astonishing. Wendy Williams, the Minnesota Orchestra's second flute, was initially frustrated with the communication gap but then quickly adopted the language of smiles and hugs. As Music Director Osmo Vänskä explained, we learn by playing for each other. And he meant in both directions. Vänskä shared the podium at the side-by-side session with Cuban composer Guido López Gavilán, who taught the Minnesotans a rhythm that came to life not from a precise reading of the printed notes but from a more primal feeling of time. The exchanges continued as the Minnesotans handed off boxes of mouthpieces, strings, slide oil, and reeds to the students, most of whose instruments were in need of serious repair.

A little repair. Photo: Jesse Rosen

The concert programs were cleverly designed to showcase music of the Americas (Caturla's Danzón and Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story); and to fit the Russian theme of the Cubadisco festival, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet Suite, also a nod to Cuba's deep ballet tradition. The Beethoven Choral Fantasy joined the orchestra with Cuban pianist Frank Fernandez and the National Chorus of Cuba and the Eroica anchored the all-Beethoven program. Spontaneous performances of the Cuban and U.S. national anthems opened the second night's concert, both works getting full-throated performances by the audience and orchestra, all on their feet and cheering at the end.

Playing the Cuban National Anthem
Photo: Travis Anderson

The Minnesota musicians play like their lives are at stake, with urgency, immediacy, and drama that never abates. The string sound is deep and rich, woodwinds nimble, and brass dark and powerful while well-blended into the overall color. The principals had plenty of chances to shine and they were dazzling. It took guts to play a mambo in Cuba, its country of origin, and the Minnesota percussion section more than held their own in Bernstein's Mambo from West Side Story.

Trumpeter Charles Lazarus, bass guitar Dave Williamson, percussionist Peter Kogan and Osmo Vänskä on clarinet join Cuba's Orquesta Aragón in a jazz jam at the Havana Café. Photo: Travis Anderson

The Minnesota Orchestra may seem unlikely ambassadors, having experienced a most undiplomatic sixteen-month lockout that ended a little over a year ago. But from all signs, that tear in their cultural fabric is mended with an unusually high esprit de corps among the musicians, board, and staff, all of whom could be seen together over meals, on the buses, and on the dance floor. For Kevin Smith, the Orchestra's CEO and originator of the idea to tour Cuba, the orchestra is not only back, but they are committed to renewed focus on their artistry with more tours and recordings ahead.

Tour underwriter Marilyn Nelson astutely observed that great things can happen when attention goes to something larger than ourselves. There are many ingredients that go into the successful running of a major symphony orchestra, but these three days in Havana strongly indicate that standing for something or someone is not only the right thing to do, but it also electrifies the music-making and ramps up the satisfaction and joy. As policy leaders question the relevance of orchestras in serving basic human needs, I am more convinced than ever of the capacity of orchestras to improve lives and communities. The Minnesota Orchestra is an orchestra that matters.It merits our pride and creates the public value that earns arts groups and all non-profit organizations the charitable tax policies that are their lifeblood.

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What to do about those unanswered e mails? Listening to speakers like Deepak Chopra or TED talks and believing in the beneficence and generosity of the universe, you decide one bright spring morning to come out of your cocoon and reveal your desires. You're going to go after it. You think about all the people who you have been afraid to engage, those who have something you want or who you think would want something you have and make a list. You then start to send missives. If you're a writer, you may decide that this right time to send that poem or short story to The New Yorker, Tin House or The Paris Review. If you're a painter you start thinking about Larry Gagosian or Mary Boone. If your a gadget maker you remember the George Foreman ad for InventHelp. The roulette wheel is spinning. Maybe it will be your lucky day. Before the advent of the internet, the manila envelope with its SASE was the proxy for your hopes. Now everything is faster. You hit a button and your attachment is released into posterity. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo was the name of a famous war film. It takes less than a second to release your precious cargo, but days, weeks, months pass without so much as a response. You may even have had a distant connection to the editor or art dealer who is a college buddy of your internist. The least you expect is a cordial rejection. It doesn't take much to thank you and wish you luck in placing your work elsewhere. Yet nothing arrives. Talk about justifiable anger. You try to think up the exact right follow up. If you act like the editor doesn't remember your original e mail and your shared acquaintance, you're being insulting, Yet there's a distinct possibility he or she doesn't know you from Adam. And what to say? Of course you realize that the person you're writing to is beleaguered by petitioners. You understand their predicament and don't want to rush them. Just get back to me within my lifetime is the kind of thing you want to say, but you realize that you may be regarded like Uriah Heep, with your unctuousness only covering up your obvious rage at being dismissed or forgotten. You decide to be as matter-of-fact as possible. You send an e mail which just asks about the status of the short story, poem, art work or invention. You wait one, two, three days, one, two, three weeks and still no response. Maybe now it's time to copy and sent the same e mail as if it weren't sent before. You think of a cluster bomb in which you will mail the same e mail every day for a month. But then you realize you will be regarded as a total nut case, a stalker who may be feared but whose work will not be taken seriously. You will have blown your opportunity entirely. There are only two things left to do 1) pray 2) look on the whole experience as an opportunity for spiritual growth. Rather than feeling despondent at having all your hopes dashed, begin to look at it as a privilege which will open up new worlds of ego-deflation.

(This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary art, politics and culture}

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By Constance Breton, May 20, 2015

On the occasion of the 33rd edition of Art Brussels, one of Europe's most popular contemporary art fairs, we caught up with Frédéric de Goldschmidt, an influential yet discreet, French collector living in the Belgium capital.

De Goldschmidt actively supports international and local emerging artists through his collection and involvement in many artistic happenings around the city. This has established him as one of the key players of the Brussels art scene, where he keeps and shares his collection, by appointment. He sat down with us to answer 10 Questions about his "eye" and vision for collecting.

Q: When and why did you start collecting art ?

de Goldschmidt: I bought my first pieces of artwork when I was a teenager. They were two prints, one by Hans Hartung, one by Zao Wou-ki. The first original piece of contemporary art I bought with serious consideration was a work by Benjamin Sabatier in 2007. I had seen a work at FIAC that was sold and I wrote down the day of his next opening in order for me to be there at the beginning of the opening - which I successfully did. The work was made with ice cube trays filed with crumpled magazine pages. A few months later, I decided to take a year off and spend my time visiting museums, exhibitions, art fairs. It was my grandmother who made me appreciate art and she was a collector, so I decided to « recycle » into art part of my inheritance from her. It is a kind of homage. I hope I'll be able to transmit a taste and a collection to my grandchildren too... And in the meantime to be challenged by art and artists.

Q: Is your collection more based on the subject rather than a certain artistic movement ?

de Goldschmidt: Works from the ZERO group and related artists of the 60s were among my first acquisitions during my "sabbatical." I don't follow a concept, but I keep a strong attraction to the simple and unconventional materials they used: cardboard with Schoonhoven, nails with Uecker, corks with Henderikse, styrofoam balls with Manzoni, I appreciate contemporary artists with the same inspiration. I buy works that speak to me more than I follow than artists or movements.

Q: What are the key artists in your collection ?

de Goldschmidt:I started collecting works that struck me when I was only visiting museums and shows. I was sensible to Arte Povera in Italy, so I bought works by Alighiero Boetti, a large piece by Kounellis,...One of my first major acquisition of a 21st century artist was a piece by Mike Kelley, a very multifaceted artist whose Memory wares particularly attracted me. I now concentrate on current production, works out of studio. The names of the artists will hopefully be recognized in a few years.

Q: Do you collect any kind of mediums, including video and performance ?

de Goldschmidt: I have a problem with video because I am not patient enough to set up the equipment, sit down and stay quiet for 20 minutes... And I don't even own a TV... I nevertheless bought my first video, by Amélie Bouvier, this year, because it was a large edition and at a low price. I think that videos should be published as they were at the beginning, without limitation, and sold at a reasonable price, like a DVD or a film on iTunes. More people could thus look at them on their computer when they have some free time. I would like to collect performance, it is easier to store but it is even more difficult to show...

Q: You are very close to young artists and often support them. Do you consider it is important to be in contact with tomorrow's artists and help them develop ?

de Goldschmidt: Yes, this is part of what I consider a duty: use part my grandmother's inheritance to support contemporary creators. It makes much more sense to buy the work of a young artist who must eat today...than from a dead collector. In a period when state support is diminishing, collectors could take over part of this responsibility.

Q: You regularly organize exhibitions of your collection's works, on the occasion of which you work with emerging curators. Can you talk about the show "Break it out!" organized by Julian Elias Bronner and Benjamin Faust on the occasion of the Art Brussels fair ?

de Goldschmidt: I asked two young New Yorkers, Julian Elias Bronner, an art journalist and Benjamin Faust Weber, an artist, to build a show around a piece by Alighiero e Boetti, "Zig zag," and draw some lines between this sculpture made of a multi-color lounge chair and aluminum and other works from my collection, They tried to push a bit the aesthetic framework of the collection by inviting young Belgian or American artists not (yet...) represented in the collection. I am very happy with it.

Q: Last year, you contributed to the exhibition "Stalactica" and you took part in the funding of a monumental piece of art made by the artist trio Clairenadiasimon at the CAB. Were you involved in other events this year during Art Brussels?

de Goldschmidt: No production this year, but I was involved in three shows : "Break Out!" at my space, "Do you have barbaric taste?" at Poppositions with over 40 works and I also lent a work to a show of Japanese art curated by Nathalie Guiot at Hangar18.
"Do you have barbaric taste?" was organized by the young curators, Les Commissaires Anonymes and Nicolas de Ribou, who wanted to bring together a selection of works acquired for less than 8,000 euros over the past 10 years from a group of five Brussels-based collectors. They wanted to combine established and emerging artists to reflect on the role of collectors as defining cultural judgments and forming artistic hierarchies. It should be quite exciting to see how the rearrangement of our collections will look like -for us and for the public.

Q: You took part in the Solo prize as a juror, which rewards an artist's ambitious project. How do you relate to Art Brussels?

de Goldschmidt: Art Brussels is great and I believe it is important to support your hometown fair. Though I am French, Brussels is where I keep and show my collection. It is thus a responsibility to show the best possible images to foreign visitors, galleries, and artists by attracting and rewarding those who make the effort of putting together an ambitious booth.

Q: You are a very active and hard-working collector. What are your basic ideas for collecting art?

de Goldschmidt: Collecting art is both an impulsive egotistic pleasure and an altruistic social responsibility. It is fun to acquire and keep in your home a work in which an artist has put all his feelings and savoir faire. But it is a responsibility not to keep it for yourself and to maintain it for the future generations. Collectors need to help art to be made by acquiring works from the artists of their time and also be custodians for the future .

Q: What do you think the role of a collector is in the making of art history ?

de Goldschmidt: Collectors give artists the mean to create the works. The variety of taste among collectors should allow all artists to express themselves. Collectors (like all those who look at art) can see things that artists don't even see in their works - and make them look better by creating a dialogue them with works by other artists. But it is what the viewers of the future will see in today's works that will decide if they made it into art history - and if the collector did.

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Constance Breton is an ARTPHAIRE contributor. She is also a the founder of The Art of this Century, which is a platform that offers bespoke experiences and journeys in the art world for a private community of members.

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To watch an Apichatpong Werasethakul film is to be lulled into a dream. His latest film, Cemetery of Splendour, which premiered at Cannes this week, immerses you in a surreal, and yet real, world on the line of wakefulness and sleep: literally a hospital (once a schoolhouse), in the Thai town of Khon Kaen, where 40 soldiers are interned for "sleeping sickness," occasionally waking only to tumble into slumber, even mid-meal. Jenjira, a middle-aged woman with a damaged leg, takes care of one of these sleeping soldiers, a comatose man named Itt. For much of the film, she is patiently kneeling by Itt's bedside, and caressing his hand.

The spectator drifts into a magic quiet state with the palm trees swaying in the windows, the cicadas chirping, the sounds of the fan. At one point, a woman comes to the hospital to teach mediation: "Feel the energy of the stars," she says soothingly. "And bring that energy inside you." As she spoke, I did the same in my chair.

The surreal aspect is upped step-by-step. A pretty young medium comes and communicates with the unconscious of the soldiers, confiding to Jen that the soldiers' souls have been taken by a warrior emperor to fight his battles, one thousand years before. The hospital, she states, is built on the remains of a cemetery of kings. Later this winsome medium takes Jenjira through a forest, pointing to the leafy ground: The site, she says, of palace rooms, which the sleeping Itt seems to have mapped out with strange squares and circles in a notebook. In another scene, Jenjira travels to pray at a shrine, laying down figurines as offerings. Two young girls come to thank her for her offering; they are princesses of the shrine, they tell her. 1,000-year-old princesses. Indeed, they are dead. Jenjira lifts an eyebrow.

At points, the film becomes a series of sublime installation pieces, playing with color and light to enhance the limbo of dreaminess. My favorite sequence is that of a series of shots of the lit town at night: a neon light over a bus-stop, illuminating a poster of a wedding studio advertisement, and the night "therapy" lights on the sleeping soldiers (designed by the director), that look like long fluorescent loops and change from blue to green to red.

I also like the random images that don't make sense. A machine in the lake that spits up brilliant drops of water. A giant amoeba floating in the sky. The men at the side of the lake who suddenly stand up and move in various formations. A movie theater where, at the conclusion of the film, the entire audience stands up, as if in military salute.

The director has noted that many of the images in the film are those of his own memories in this town: the local movie theater, the school classroom we see in ruins, the brightly lit night market where the medium and Jenjira chat and eat. A Cemetery of Splendour is a collage of his native Thailand, the layered memories of the past, both his own and that of the nation.

Still, there is something unsettling about this dream. Everyone seems to be waiting. But waiting for what? Something -- beyond cemeteries -- is buried under the surface. While the images are serene and whimsical, and the film an exquisite pleasure to watch, I intuited a disturbing subtext to this hynoptic world -- especially since Apichatpong Werasethakul introduced the premiere, on stage, by speaking about how difficult it was in Thailand now, living under a dictatorship.

I met with the director to discuss. Five years before, we met to discuss his Palme d'Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and enjoyed a whimsical brainstorming about the images in his film.

This time Apichatpong Werasethakul was more serious and pointed.

Could you please explain the contemporary context of Thailand, for a non-Thai audience?

Thailand has a lot of coup d'etats, repeatedly. Every time it happens a lot of people die; the last one was just last year, in May, when the military took over. Now, if you say something against the government, they will convoke you to "Attitude Adjustment". You have to sign something that says you will not say anything again.

Why this emphasis on sleep and dreaming in your film?

I have been interested for the last five years in sleeping and dreaming. For me, the act of sleeping is an act of escape, and that is what is going on now in Thailand: One wants to escape from the country. Sometimes you feel very powerless, in that all you can do is go away. I work on many projects, art projects. Sometimes you cannot deal with reality, and you don't know if it is a dream. Sometimes the situation in Thailand is so absurd and so violent that I feel threatened...

There are a lot of random elements in the film, that don't entirely make sense. Could you please explain, for example, why everyone suddenly stands up to salute in the theater?

Because we are always standing up in Thailand! We have to stand up at eight in the morning for the National Anthem.

Why the palace in the forest? Why the cemetery under the hospital?

Thailand is a young country, with many layers of civilizations: the Kingdom of Laos, the Khmer of Cambodia. I want to present those layers of history. We don't live in only one reality, but in different layers of memories. I want the film to reflect on and lament the ruins of past kingdoms. In Thailand, we do not know the roots of who we are. We have been taught propaganda history in school: "We are the best," etc. Did you note that image in my film of the bas relief of soldiers? It was a wall created to commemorate a prime minister who died a long time ago, Sarit Thanarat. He was a total dictator. He embezzled a lot of money. Along the way, he killed people. The town is still celebrating him!

Your film, like your previous films, has ghosts and other supernatural elements...

In this region of Thailand, we are very superstitious. We are Hindu, Animistic. You believe in the invisible. People live in the fantastic. I will give you an example: A road once cracked in the village. It became a very strange shape. People put candles on the crack and started to pray. They believe in the spirit; they need to worship the invisible.

But do you believe in the other-worldly elements in your film: The ghost princesses who come to Jenjira, for example?

(AW laughs) Oh, I think it is all nonsense. For me, it is a joke. But the character is ready to believe they are phantoms. Many Thai people believe in phantoms -- it is so funny how people are ready to believe in anything. But in my film, there is no judgement. As for me, I am interested in the different parallel universes, of time and space.

What is that machine spitting water bubbles in the lake, and why do you have such a lengthy close-up on it?

(AW laughs) Oh, that is a water propeller, a machine to keep oxygen in the water, for the equilibrium in the water, so it does not go bad. Why did I put it in? Oh, I grew up with it; it was always there in the water. And the soldiers are like the fish: They, too, need oxygen. Water is life, the cycle.

What is everyone waiting for in this film?

They are waiting to wake up.

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In acting, the first rule of improvisation is to say, "Yes, AND", the idea behind it being that a scene can only move forward if you first accept the circumstances around you, and then add to them. "Yes, AND" allows for collaboration. "Yes, AND" fosters imagination. "Yes, AND" instigates progress.

For a long time, my life felt like one "No" after another. I wanted to be an actor but couldn't even get an audition, never mind an actual role. I was working four jobs and just barely getting by. I was definitely more "starving" than "artist".

I was losing the "game" that is getting work as an actor. The truth is that I wasn't trying very hard to play it. I didn't like the rules. As a woman, I felt like I was expected to live up to an imaginary ideal perpetuated by the oversimplified narrative most female characters are placed into. I remember one particularly painful audition that required all the actresses to bring bikinis with them. Usually I would have fled from kind of request, but it was for a reputable graduate film program so, (against my better judgement) I went. I made it to the "please put your bathing suit on" phase and was then given a scene that required me to violently assault my scene partner. I asked if we could practice once or twice, just to make sure no one got hurt. Or perhaps I could just show my half-naked rage through my words? I was dismissed and received an email a few days later saying that I was "too aristocratic" for the part. I was tempted to reply "Are you sure you didn't mean 'too smart'?"

I thought getting an agent would help my situation, but was told again and again that I was not a "type" and therefore un-castable. It would be more accurate to say that I am not a "type" that fits into the mainstream representation of women. Where were the stories and roles that I identified with? I was stuck.

But then I got a text from my good friend, Will Sullivan. It read:

"I want to shoot a movie this summer. All improv. For zero budget. Will you produce and star in it?"

In that moment, the answer seemed obvious to me. YES. Had I ever produced a film before? No. Did I have any idea what this movie was going to be about? Of course not. But what did I have to lose?

So I said Yes. And it was in my power to make it happen. It was time to choose my own narrative.

We decided to make a film about relationships - not about falling in love, but about what it takes to make love last. Will and our cinematographer, Derek Dodge, wrote the story outline, but there was never a set script. It was up to the actors to create their own dialogue and define the arc of each scene. I had the freedom to craft a character who was in a state of change and therefore undefined by any mold. The experience was transformative for me, not only as an actor and first time producer, but as a young woman who felt like she needed to re-define her sense of self. It scared me, so I knew it was important.

My greatest obstacle has always been fear. Fear of imperfection, fear of being wrong, fear of failing. This project taught me that there is no better cure for fear than action. As we hurtled towards production, I oscillated between thrill and absolute terror. I had no idea what I was doing but I had to do it anyway. Everyday I woke up feeling like I was in full relevé on the edge of a cliff. The only way to forward was to jump. There were moments of soaring and moments of falling hard on my face. I learned, though, that even if I fell, at least I had found the ground. I could get up and keep going. Three days before our shoot started, I cut off all my hair. I did it for the part, but I also did it for me. While the deed itself was superficial, it symbolized the letting go of an image I felt I was expected to fit into. I was released from who I thought I should be, and free to figure out who I could be.

What started as a text message is now a feature film, That's Not Us, set to be released later this year. Making it was a gift of self-discovery - as a leader, as a woman, as an artist, and as an imperfect being who still has much to learn. I had the privilege of being able to make mistakes and learn by doing. To me, that is the true essence of independent film. It's about creating work on your own terms, exploding the mold, and saying "yes, and" to the opportunities that come with attempting the unknown.

That's Not Us premieres at the Inside Out Film Festival in Toronto on May 23rd, 2015. Follow them on Facebook, Twitter, or visit their website at www.thatsnotus.com

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Elizabeth Reaser, Justin Bartha, Lucas Near-Verbrugghe and Nicole Lowrance in Permission by Robert Askins. Photo: Jenny Anderson

Playwright Robert Askins, while writing Hand to God, presumably never expected his irreverently absurd comedy to land on Shubert Alley with multiple Tony Award nominations. There it is at the Booth, though, with a strong set of ardent admirers (including many reviewers). This type of success can change expectations for an unorthodox 30-something playwright from Texas. His next play, fairly or not, is sure to be looked at in a very different light -- or spotlight -- than what came before.

That play is now here: Permission, which is being presented by the MCC Theater at the Lortel. (MCC also produced Hand to God at the Lortel, although it was developed and initially presented in an earlier version by the Ensemble Studio Theatre.) Like Hand to God, Permission is outrageous and profane; like its predecessor, it can be seen as a sledgehammer attack on religion featuring violence and sex, albeit without as much bloodshed. But there the similarities end. Hand to God is inspired; Permission, alas, is not.

For his starting point, Askins has borrowed the real-life practice called Christian Domestic Discipline. (You can look it up on the Internet, as the characters in the play do, although you might just want to let it pass.) In effect--or at least as described by Askins in Permission -- it suggests that it is God's will that the husband beat the wife, constantly. Zach (Lucas Near --Verbrugghe), owner of a sporting goods chain, lives happily with his too-submissive lawyer-wife Michelle (Nicole Lowrance). When his professor friend Eric (Justin Bartha) has trouble with his stay-at-home-drinking-wine wife (Elizabeth Reaser), Zach convinces him to apply the rod. Or, rather, the hairbrush.

This he does, and it all works out not so well. Eric takes to locking his wife in a closet all day, which magically improves her behavior until the suddenly-enlightened Michelle comes round and disrupts both marriages. Let it be noted that the playwright seems to justify wife beating by giving us scenes in which the wives explicitly encourage -- and force -- their husbands to beat them. (We will assume this is Askins-the-playwright attacking CDD, rather than speaking for himself.) If people took the play seriously this might raise issues, but I don't suspect many will take the play seriously.

Lucas Near-Verbrugghe, Justin Bartha, Elizabeth Reaser and Nicole Lowrance in Permission by Robert Askins. Photo: Jenny Anderson

The actors are personable, but it can be difficult to sustain characters when dialogue and actions are unbelievable and inconsistent. Most interesting of the bunch is Ms. Reaser, who starred opposite Norbert Leo Butz in the 2012 Second Stage revival of How I Learned to Drive (and who more recently played Don Draper's final flame, an enigmatic waitress, in the final stretches of "Mad Men.") Alex Timbers -- of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Peter and the Starcatcher and Rocky -- directs.

There is a fifth character, Eric's student-secretary Jeanie (Talene Monahon), whom Askins also injects into the swing of things. The action culminates in a tortured dinner scene which turns into high-octane comic turmoil (not unlike several sections of Hand to God). There is a very funny orgy/battle that suggests Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? as lampooned by Christopher Durang. This lasts only five minutes or so, though; the rest of the time, Permission jabs away satirically without quite hitting its mark.

Imagine Hand to God without Tyrone, the puppet character. In some ways, methinks, that's precisely what Askins has done here: Imagined Hand to God without the puppet, and that's not enough.
.
Permission, by Robert Askins, opened May 20, 2015 and continues through June 14 at the Lucille Lortel Theatre

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Divine Key Anderson (left) teaches a class about the use of a green screen in film making at the Liberia Film Institute on May 6, 2015.

The Liberia Film Institute's latest class of filmmakers recently completed a series of short documentaries and dramas dealing with their country's unprecedented Ebola outbreak. They have been screening their films in communities around the country, and a large film festival in Monrovia is being planned for late June. Here's a look at some of the student filmmakers behind the project.

Dorkas Pewee, 28, produced a short drama called "Out of Sympathy." She has been a student at LFI since it began offering classes in 2012, and is currently finishing her senior year of high school as well. "It's heavy, it's a load I'm toting, but I manage it," she said. "I decided to put my whole self into this."

She is most interested in producing documentary and fictional films that address women's issues. Her greatest hope is that her work will reach a wide audience and bring about positive societal changes as a result.

Eli Z. Foday, 26, produced a short documentary called "Transport Condition." This is his second cycle of classes at LFI, which he learned about through his involvement at church.

He is mostly interested in making documentaries about, "the things that are affecting us, as individuals and as a country." Prior to discovering filmmaking as a goal, Eli said he wasn't a very productive person and the new skills he's learning make him very proud. "It changed me a lot. I thought there was nothing I would do," he said. "I know there's something in me now."

George Nyanzeor, 23, worked as an editor on three of the Ebola films. He is currently in his second cycle of classes at LFI.

His dream is to be a documentary and fiction filmmaker, creating educational films "that would expose my culture to the world" and "change the mindset of people." He said that being a student at LFI changed his life, "because it stopped me from doing some jobless things and useless things. Now I'm set and focused on one thing."

Helena Chowoe, 31, produced a short documentary called "Survivor," about a man who lost most of his family to Ebola and came out of the treatment facility alive, but is still facing the scrutiny and fears of his community.

She decided to study film making at LFI in pursuit of a career "that upholds accountability in the film industry." Her dream is to become a successful filmmaker and to help others learn the craft. She is the mother of two children, a boy and a girl.

Kelvin M. Jalibah, 27, produced a short documentary called "Labor Workers." This is his first cycle of classes at LFI and he's mostly interested in making documentaries.

"I want to be a filmmaker because I think film can be a tool to change the society," he said. His biggest hope is to create films "that will have a great impact on people's lives." He said the experience of learning filmmaking has changed him dramatically. "I used to think that violence was the only way," he said. "But I changed my mind."

Oliver T. Williams, 28, produced a short drama called "Denial." This is his second cycle of classes at LFI. He chose the topic of his film because of the then disbelief in Liberia that Ebola exists and the dangers it posed in the country.

Going forward in his career, Oliver hopes to be an international visual journalist. He is currently a motorcycle taxi driver and a supervisor with the Liberia Motorcycle Transport Union. Seeing how motorcycle drivers are often mistreated in Liberia's streets has made Oliver interested in developing films about human rights issues.

Prince S. Jallah, 26, produced a short documentary called "Self Protection." This is his first cycle of classes at LFI, and his confidence has improved dramatically with the training. He said before he started classes, he "used to be running up and down on the street doing nothing."

"It's been a big change in my life," he said. " I trust myself that I can go out there with a camera, do my editing and make something good." Now Prince aspires to continue growing as a filmmaker and to work with others to improve society. He recognizes that because many Liberians are illiterate, film represents a powerful way to educate and influence people for the better.

Secret Key, 27, produced a short documentary called "The Visit." This is her second cycle of classes at LFI, and she did her first cycle while pregnant with twins. She has five children.

She dreams of becoming "the best female documentary producer in Africa," she said. "You know, we have a lot of stories to tell in Liberia, so many horrible things that happened to people. I decided to tell my life story so I can let go of it."

Prior to taking up training as a filmmaker, Secret was in the "quick service photo" business, but she decided to work for something more rewarding. She's especially interested in telling stories about single mothers in Liberia.

Sylvester V. Johnson, 27, worked as an editor on five of the Ebola films. This is his first cycle of classes at LFI, and he's interested in fiction and documentary.

"This was my dream, to do movies," he said. "So when I heard about this school, I took advantage of it." Sylvester was a student elsewhere, but he dropped out "due to lack of support." He was a motorcycle taxi driver and was doing little else. "I really thought I was useless," he said. "Since I came here, my life has changed."

Massagbeh S.M. Shariff, 26, produced a short drama called "The Return of Ebola." This is her first cycle of classes at LFI.

"I want to be an international film maker and I also want to learn more about cameras and editing," she said. She hopes to change her own life and the lives of others by successfully attaining that goal. She spends as much time as possible at the film school. "I abandoned my house to sleep here because I want to learn everything about filmmaking," she said. "I just love it."

Terrah P. Saabendoe, 32, produced a short drama called "Prevention is Better Than Cure," which is about the importance of remaining abstinent for three months following an Ebola infection.

He is currently self-employed as a freelance film maker, and is attending classes at LFI to improve his skills and advance his career. Terrah is the father of two children, a boy and a girl.

Three student filmmakers are not pictured. Jackie Dolo is the creator of a short drama called "Lack of Knowledge;" Wilbur T. Scott produced a short documentary called "Emergency Treatment," and Kingsley is the creator of an untitled short drama.

Photos by Jim Tuttle, Accountability Lab Liberia Multi-media Intern. Engage with Accountability Lab on Twitter at @accountlab.

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There are self-help books. There is meditation and mindfulness. There's aromatherapy and St John's wort. There are friends. There's wine.

No one is short of ways for tackling worry.

But there's an oddity. There are more furtive methods for containing worries that are hard to admit. That is because they are borrowed, in the midst of our contemporary world, from the cavemen.

Worriers like me are secretly devoted to mysterious rituals and superstitions. Although we're ordinary people living ordinary lives, we are caught up in peculiar dramas of obeisance. Although we are modern people, living modern lives, our mental resources are dependent on primitive things. In this sense, we are not, in fact, ordinary or modern at all. Our worrying minds belong among the stone circles and the barrows, with puzzling fates and mercurial gods who rule our lives.

I am good at worrying that I have left the kettle on. And so I can't leave the house without a little ritual. I step into the kitchen and press the off switch of the plug socket that powers the kettle. I do this with my right fore-finger. I look down to check that the kettle light isn't on. I confirm that the plug in the socket actually runs to the kettle. I walk out.

I might as well bow.

Checking my kettle, I have temporarily placated the revengeful power that will punish me with fire if I do not perform this ritual each time I leave. What are these powers? Am I really caught up in a primitive revenge tragedy where there is always calamity waiting on human failure?

Lots of people do similar things. Some minor rituals are performed on the threshold. The neatly choreographed checking of pockets for keys, phones, wallets, coins, at the doorway of homes is familiar. Some people walk round their car in the same direction, almost rhythmically, to check the car doors really are locked and that there are no new scratches owners might accidentally have caused. Not to do this would not only be thoughtless. It would be an insult to the faceless powers that are always waiting for a chance.

A friend of mine checks her hair straighteners before she leaves the house. She runs upstairs and confirms they are not on by picking them up. Good, she thinks, they are cold. The straighteners are, therefore, off. She does this even though she hardly uses them and most of the time they are not plugged in. The vengeful forces among which we live don't expect us to be logical. They just expect us to be faithful.

The legacies of superstition have seemingly lingered far into the modern world.

Worrying itself has only been talked about since the middle of the nineteenth century. Low-level anxieties about the future were only fully labelled as "worry" at the beginning of the twentieth. The first worrying self-help books belong, in turn, to the first decades of the twentieth century. Worry, it seems, has been invented by the modern world.

Worrying is the "disease of the age," said the American physician C.W. Saleeby in 1906. He was right. Contemporary urban and suburban existences, Saleeby observed, were becoming so busy, so time-tabled, with increasingly large numbers of choices and opportunities, that it was hard not to worry. Modern capitalism was filling our time with fretfulness.

Worry is still a "disease of the age." Advanced capitalism makes us ceaselessly busy. Our commuting lives are time-tabled down to seconds. We are faced with innumerable decisions. We worry that we got it wrong, that there was a better choice, a better route, perhaps even a better kettle. Then most politicians remind us now that success is down to us; that the individual is responsible for their own failure; that help will not be at hand. We pile on the pressure to make the correct choices, to do the right things. Otherwise revengeful gods will punish us.

Worry is a flaw in reason. It is the mildest form of an obsessive compulsive disorder. Yet it is also a sign of something wrong not with me but with today.

What happens in the heads of an every-day worrier isn't ordinary. It is both deeply strange and perturbingly modern. The worrier's head is full of reasoning. But it is also a repository of sacrificial altars and sacred stones. The gods we need to conciliate at those altars might seem anonymous and lost in the mists of our anxieties. They might seem to be the last traces of primitive faiths that have managed to cling on to the present-day.

But I know exactly what those powerful forces are that we're trying to placate. We're attempting to make ourselves feel safe in the society we've created for ourselves.

Francis O'Gorman is the author of Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History (May 2015, Bloomsbury).

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Usage criticism hasn't changed much since the 1870s. Then as now, language critics were appalled by the profusion of illogical usages, incorrect meanings, sloppy writing mistakes, and newly invented terms that weren't real words. They even blamed the same culprits -- declining educational standards and a society where "anything goes."

The most prominent post-Civil War language critic was essayist Richard Grant White. In his monthly column in The Galaxy, and in his books Words and Their Uses and Every-Day English, he instructed millions of concerned readers on what not to say.

Modern usage mavens would recognize -- and no doubt applaud -- White's apocalyptic tone. He was convinced that English was in a dire state and sinking fast. The only real surprise would be which words White singled out for criticism. Even the fussiest language stickler these days would have a hard time explaining what's wrong with the terms on this 1870s list of shame.

10. Presidential. This word is "not legitimate," in White's opinion. The problem? "Carelessness or ignorance" has saddled it with an extra i. The word should be presidental -- like incidental, regimental, and experimental. The jarring phrase presidential campaign, declares White, is a good example of "inflamed newspaper English."

9. Scientist. White finds this new coinage "intolerable both as being unlovely in itself and improper in its formation." He suggests sciencist as a slightly better alternative. He admits, however, that even sciencist illogically combines a Latin-based word (science) with a Greek ending (ist). It's best to say man of science. (Presumably, woman of science would be okay too.)

8. Dress. This noun is misused "by one sex only," notes White. According to tradition, he explains, dress refers to everything a person wears, including underclothes. Men still abide by this correct meaning -- no man calls his coat or trousers his dress. Women, on the other hand, say dress when they mean gown.

7. Railroad. White claims that this "abominable" word also suffers from a lack of logic. Everyone knows -- or should know -- that road means "the ground ridden over." Train tracks are not a road -- they're a way, or "that which guides a course." The correct term is therefore railway. And while we're at it, let's stop saying depot when we mean station.

6. Affable. This term, according to White, is supposed to mean someone of a high social class who has a friendly and gracious manner toward inferiors. However, people are starting to apply it to anyone good-natured, which White considers "a deplorable sign of the leveling power of democracy." Newspaper reporters -- a bane of White's existence -- write about "affable" hotel-keepers and "affable" steamboat captains, although these men's customers are probably their social superiors.

5. Lady. This word is problematic in the same way as affable, only worse. White thinks that it's lost its meaning by being applied to any adult female. His case in point -- a streetcar conductor who asks passengers "to move up ... and 'let in this lady,' as Bridget McQuean ... struggles at the car door with her basket of clothes." Like many Americans of the time, White had a low opinion of the Irish immigrants who streamed into the United States during Ireland's potato famine. He could no more imagine an Irish laundress being a lady than he could imagine a steamboat captain being a gentleman.

4. Will. Shall had been on the wane since the late eighteenth century, but White thought shall/will distinctions were worth preserving. Simple future, he explains, should be expressed I shall, you will, he/she will. For emphasis or to express determination or a threat, flip the verbs -- I will go! but You shall go! Chalk up this one up as a partial success for White. Thanks to him and other like-minded sticklers, schoolchildren continued memorizing the shall/will rules -- although not following them -- well into the twentieth century.

3. Donate. White considers this so-called word "utterly abominable." Some "presuming and ignorant person" has created it from donation. It is much such a word, he says, "as vocate would be from vocation, orate from oration, or gradate from gradation." White was apparently unaware that orate actually was a word. At least, it was included in the 1879 version of Webster's Dictionary.

2. Reliable. This word is so bad, White puts it in the category of "words that are not words." Just because everybody says it, as far as he's concerned, that doesn't make it a word. The big problem with reliable is that it's not like other -able adjectives, which can typically be paraphrased as 'able to be (verb)ed'--for instance, lovable, curable, drinkable. Reliable cannot be defined as "able to be relied." White is resigned to this nonword's continued existence, however, because it's so useful. "To some sins," he writes despairingly, "men are so wedded that they will shut their ears to Moses and the prophets."

1. Jeopardize. In White's opinion, this monstrous term is the worst of the "words that are not words." No right-thinking person would dream of using it. Which word should people use instead? Why, jeopard, of course. Never mind that jeopard, a verb meaning to put in danger, was virtually obsolete by the 1870s. White reasons that -ize normally turns nouns or adjectives into verbs -- equal/equalize, civil/civilize, patron/patronize. Jeopardize breaks this rule by using -ize to turn a verb into another verb that means the same thing. That means jeopardize can't really be a word.

White's objections to jeopardize are totally logical. In spite of that, the term has somehow become an ordinary item of the vocabulary, while jeopard has completely disappeared. The same is true for White's other nonwords. Attitudes toward usage don't change, but language does. The illogical linguistic atrocities of today are the donate, reliable, and jeopardize of tomorrow.

Rosemarie Ostler's new book is Founding Grammars: How Early America's War over Words Shaped Today's Language (St. Martin's, 2015).

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As a kid growing up in Queens, I was fortunate enough to see some amazing live theater that I could only really appreciate later in life: Patty Lupone in Evita, Stockard Channing in Grease and many others. As an adult, I saw the truly transformative power of theater when The Laramie Project told the story of Matthew Shepard's murder and the impact it had on Laramie, Wyoming, growing into a cultural phenomena with untold impact on the hearts and minds of the now millions of people it has touched.

But I have never, ever has a moment in the theater reach into my heart and pull on my soul the way Fun Home has from the first time I saw it. And every time since, given that from the moment the curtain went up the first time I saw it at the Public Theater, I was taken into a new world, immediately realizing I was watching something historical and culture changing, not just for me but for anyone who experiences Fun Home.

Of course, for decades I have been an avid fan of Alison Bechdel's work. What lesbian wasn't? In a world where our stories were so rarely told in an authentic manner, Alison's world and the characters she brought to life gave us a way to see ourselves, laugh at ourselves and feel validated in a way that media representations never did. This was well before Ellen, The L Word and the now much more ubiquitous, nuanced and diverse characters we see in film and television. And of course there are so many more out lesbian and bisexual woman from all walks of life, but this incredible work has carved out a very special place in the landscape of lesbian visibility. When the headline screamed "Is Broadway ready for a butch lesbian?" all I could think was "yes, it better be!." And clearly it is, with the on-going success and accolade and a dozen Tony nods.

I am thrilled it will now go on a national tour and I hope that everyone sees the beauty in one of the most moving ascenes in the show, Alison with her Dad in the diner, stopped in her tracks by a butch deliver woman rolling in with a swagger and a handcart. We don't see that delivery woman on stage but she is vividly conjured in our minds by a mesmerized young Alison. And I hope they all feel the thrill and energy of the grin on a young Alison's face when she sings "Why am I the only one who see you're beautiful?.....No, I mean.....Handsome!" Validation. Seeing yourself for the first time. Knowing that you are not alone. It is all captured in that moment, one that can change a person's life. The feeling for me is the same as when I experienced it in real life myself, blessed with strong women who defied convention in my own family and allowed me to grow up in an atmosphere of acceptance, still far too rare for so many LGBT youth. There has never been a scene like that on Broadway. That moment will live forever as a marker for so many of us who have waited our entire lives to see it.

Welcome to FUN HOME, the groundbreaking new musical now on Broadway after a sold-out, critically acclaimed run at the Public Theater. Based on Alison Bechdel's best-selling graphic memoir, FUN HOME features music by 4-time Tony Award® nominee Jeanine Tesori (Violet; Caroline, or Change), book and lyrics by Tony Award nominee Lisa Kron (Well) and direction by Sam Gold (Seminar), and stars Tony winner Michael Cerveris (Sweeney Todd) and three-time Tony nominee Judy Kuhn (Les Misérables).
FUN HOME introduces us to Alison at three different ages, revealing memories of her uniquely dysfunctional family - her mother, brothers and volatile, brilliant, enigmatic father - that connect with her in surprising new ways. This intimate and emotional theatrical experience is performed entirely in the round, bringing audiences closer to Alison's story than ever before.
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and already the winner of five awards for Best Musical, FUN HOME is a refreshingly honest, wholly original musical about seeing your parents through grown-up eyes.

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Please note: This is Part I of a three-part article. Stay tuned.

PART I

"Because here's the thing -- the road ahead is not going to be easy. It never is, especially for folks like you and me. Because while we've come so far, the truth is that those age-old problems are stubborn and they haven't fully gone away. So there will be times, just like for those Airmen, when you feel like folks look right past you, or they see just a fraction of who you really are. The world won't always see you in those caps and gowns. They won't know how hard you worked and how much you sacrificed to make it to this day -- the countless hours you spent studying to get this diploma, the multiple jobs you worked to pay for school, the times you had to drive home and take care of your grandma, the evenings you gave up to volunteer at a food bank or organize a campus fundraiser. They don't know that part of you. Instead they will make assumptions about who they think you are based on their limited notion of the world."

- Michelle Obama, Tuskegee University Commencement Address, May 2015

The following comments below are responses from my discussion with successful, young Black colleagues in the opera profession in May 2015.

"I did walk on stage in a competition once, while audibly hearing a shocked audience member mention "Ein Schwarze..." (German for "A Black")

"Once in Italy, I had to walk to my hotel and it was a hump. It was a small town and everyone knew I was not from there. I only saw two other Black people there. My Italian was pretty new so I didn't understand everything. On my walk, men constantly were stopping and asking me if I needed a ride. I said, "No thank you," and kept walking. Finally on a long walk to the grocery store a very old man offered and I said to myself, "I can take him on if he acts like a fool." I kept my hand on the door to jump and roll if necessary. It wasn't. He took me to the store and when I offered my hand to shake his and thank him, he grabbed my breast and smiled. I was shocked and got out the car.(I was young and stupid, I know). I told my cast-mates what happened. I had been telling them all along how nice everyone in the town was always for offering me rides. Once I told them of this incident they finally told me it was not niceness. Black women were thought to be prostitutes and they were trying to pick me up. From that point on, the tenor offered to drive me home at night."

"...in Europe... the director said he couldn't have two Black singers cast in a production he was directing because the direction and flavor of the show would change."

"While walking the streets of Paris midday with my family, my sister and I passed a
woman who intentionally put her leg out to forcefully kick my sister (who was wearing
her hair in an afro at the time) and cursed at her using racially-charged language."

"Once in Europe with a mostly French cast, a cast-mate's daughter was encouraged to come and show me the "English" they taught her. She came to me slapped her hands together and shouted, "Dynomite!!!" They all laughed. Good Times was 20+ years old by then. I had never said those words to my cast mates, but they found it appropriate to teach this little girl that "cooning" is what I would like."

"My family was very openly refused taxi service in Berlin coming from an airport and
made such a scene that caused another White taxi driver to comment, "What was his
problem?"

"Primarily in Europe, make-up artists refuse to apply my make-up because
they don't know how to work with my complexion. I take this as fear on their part
because certainly they have the resources to research my skin tone and learn the best
methods to apply; however, time and time again they tell me just go without make-up while in the same show my lighter-skinned counterpart is spending an hour, on average, in the make-up room to be sure their features are highlighted."

"While working in Europe I have been told that I can never sing certain traditional roles solely on the basis that I was black. This is something opera houses in America would
never be so bold to proclaim."

Meanwhile in America...

"I have never worn a wig in Europe or been "whitened up" as I have in the States."

"We had a concert at a country club. I arrived with an Latino singer They told us we had to park in the back and enter through the kitchen. I told them that we were performing. They said we still had to come through the kitchen. My colleague was going to do it. I told him I would go home first. I parked in front and walked through the front door. When I told the White singers what happened.They said, they parked in the front, walked in the front and no one had told them to do
differently."

"Just after walking off stage and taking my bow, I walk out to the valet parking area to retrieve my Black Cadillac Escalade. As the truck pulls up, I tip the driver and open my door to get in when suddenly I'm stopped by an elderly Caucasian women who asks,
"Young man, where is the bus?"
"Pardon me ma'am?"
"The Bus. Where is it? Where did you park it? You DID drive the Bus DIDN'T you?"

"I've had cabs called for me while staying at nice hotels that upon seeing me waiting in front of the hotel have attempted to refuse to take me somewhere until a concierge worker or someone from the hotel pressed the issue. But to end on a lighter note, there was once a couple that handed me the keys to their car to park it for them while at a company function. I guess they assumed I was the help since I was dressed in a tuxedo."

"On a tour of the eastern seaboard with my boarding arts high school we encountered a donor who refused to house black students: as result two other black singers and I were put up in a hotel."

"After a private donor party in a gated neighborhood a white female colleague and I
were talking and walking through the community when we were approached by a White police officer and told we were not welcome in the neighborhood. My White friend tried to speak up on our account, but the officer made it clear that he wasn't talking to her. I explained that I was there as a guest of prominent family and were just taking a walk. He threatened to arrest me for "talking back."

"Place: Metropolitan Opera. Very high level Donor dinner at a private restaurant ... Sitting at the table with all the Lindeman Young Artists, the director and several donors. The wife of a donor turns to me and says,
"You know what? I'd just like to apologize to you for Slavery. I just think it was so bad. I mean I never OWNED slaves ... Well, my Family did years ago I guess ... but I never did. I mean we had blacks that helped out around the house and everything, but they weren't SLAVES ... They were like our family. But I'm serious ... It was just so bad ... and I just feel like I needed to say that to you!"
Everyone at the table sat there with their mouths open."

"I've been told, unfortunately more than once, that it's just too difficult to get my skin tone to make sense in the plot."

I've heard more times than you can imagine: "Nobody sings Old Man River like YOU people!"

"When touring USA... I was responsible for all the expenses as it pertained to both my pianist and myself. There were a lot of wonderful people I met during my travels but unfortunately in some places I encountered some less than enlightened folks with their narrow attitudes or biases. One in particular was a desk clerk at a hotel who refused to look in my direction or even speak to me. She attempted to communicate with me only via my pianist and not acknowledge my existence at all. This was really comical since my pianist was standing a few steps behind me and I was the one with the credit card and handling the check-in. This was a situation that definitely needed to be dealt with in as stern and unambiguous a manner as was warranted. Her manager was beyond mortified and quite apologetic."

"I'm not sure if folks are really ready for that kind of truth in this business. I'm not sure of any Black man in this business that could say without a doubt that it hasn't been an issue."

Postscript: Barbara Conrad entered the University of Texas in 1956, the first year in which Black students were admitted to the University as undergraduates. With her natural talents and stage presence, Barbara was encouraged to audition for a role in the University's 1957 production of Dido and Aeneas. She was awarded the leading role of Dido, the Queen of Carthage, opposite a white boy as Aeneas, her lover. Soon after the start of rehearsals, word spread that a black girl and a white boy were to play the lead roles in a romantic opera, and Barbara's trouble began. Ultimately, the controversy escalated to the Texas legislature, and the president of the University was advised to remove her from the cast. Barbara's story was covered by national news media, prompting a carte blanche offer from Harry Belafonte to underwrite her studies at the institution of her choice. Barbara, however, chose to remain at the University. She triumphed by going on to sing leading roles throughout the world.

There are many more from the pioneers who have broken the color barrier: Marian Anderson, George Shirley, Simon Estes, Leontyne Price, Reri Grist, Grace Bumbry, Todd Duncan, Shirley Verrett, William Warfield, and many more.

Sadly there are hundreds of anecdotes like the ones above, even now in 2015.

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This week's opening of the American Ballet Theater's Othello at the Metropolitan Opera House, a spectacular version of Shakespeare's tragedy about the warrior king who succumbs to the manipulations of an ensign, and murders the love of his life, marks ABT's commitment to newer works. As part of its 75th anniversary, ABT had been showing the early works of George Balanchine, Agnes DeMille, Jerome Robbins, among others, but with this Othello, first produced in 1997, with Lar Lubovitch's choreography and Elliot Goldenthal's music, the ballet in three acts verges more toward opera than to traditional ballet. And with Julie Kent, Marcelo Gomes, and Misty Copeland, ballet superstars, the work was thrilling. For the Academy Award-winning composer, this is a highpoint in a stellar career scoring movies, and other works in many genres. Most recently, he created sound for Grounded, a one-woman show starring Anne Hathaway, and directed by Julie Taymor at the Public Theater. I had the opportunity to talk to Elliot Goldenthal prior to this opening, about his work on Othello and Grounded, his Symphony in G Minor, the upcoming film release of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the career honors he is about to be awarded in Poland.

The eerie and technical music for Grounded, and the Othello ballet seem to come from opposite sides of a musical sensibility. What were some of the challenges of creating music for these works?

Elliot: One is supporting a performance: for Grounded, a show that Julie Taymor directed, the music alludes to a specific language of music. I call it a soundscape: the music allows the actor to sit in an environment that caters to emotion.

For Othello, the music takes on the practical needs of composing by reaction to Shakespeare's narrative; every detail is specifically related to the event of Lar Lubovitch's grand ballet. Another variation, the Othello Symphony, is the pared down version. I took the 2½ hour event of the ballet music, and rarefied that to 32 minutes, not to tell the story narratively as ballet does, but to turn narrative ballet into a symphony.

What will audiences see at the Metropolitan Opera House?

Elliot: Othello is the only 3-act commissioned ballet and the most successful American ballet in the last 25 years, remounted in New York, Chicago, and parts of Europe, with 70-80 musicians, it is a giant grand ballet. The MET opera house fills 2300 seats every night.

Symphony in G Minor seems more experimental, a slow building movement that suddenly goes wild. What was your inspiration?

Elliot: Symphony in G Minor is a personal work. I was creating an atmosphere of experiencing time in a different way. The first movement is slow, using delicate instruments. It's like reading a Proust novel, a psychologically gripping 13 minutes. In the second movement, all hell breaks loose. The percussion section surrounds the audience, and flies in and out of spaces. I would think it longer travelling in time, while the shorter movement seems longer than it is. It had its European premiere in Austria in September.

You have often collaborated with Julie Taymor. Is there some short hand that you have working together?

Elliot: Working with Julie seems like short hand. But in the end, work is trial and error. You try to find your way, shift strategies. She is one of my continual collaborators. Neil Jordan is another. We did Michael Collins, and other movies. I did 6 or 7 with Julie, plus 13 stage productions. We have a lot more to go. We worked on A Midsummer Night's Dream for the opening of the Theater for a New Audience. The film of that will premiere on June 15 in New York.

Tell me about the award you are about to receive in Poland.

Elliot: I am the first composer to receive this national award, the first honoring composer Wojciech Kilar. He did the score for Roman Polanski's The Pianist and Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula. He was born in 1932 did opera and film scores during occupied Soviet Poland. The award is for composers who are wedded to the classical style, and work directly with the director or the writer, concerned with artistic vision in a personal way. Kristof Penderecki and Roman Polanski were the judges. The award ceremony will take place in Poland, May 25-26, followed by a concert of my Shakespeare compositions in Krakow, May 28 and 29. That will include music from Titus Andronicus, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello excerpts, a giant Shakespeare concert with the orchestra joined by rock musicians playing amplified sound.

Grounded is about to close, on May 24. Are there plans to move it to Broadway?

Elliot: We are not sure. It is a very practical show, not much of a crew, with few costume considerations. Anne Hathaway takes it on all the demands of this role. Her concentration is fierce as a pilot who is working the "chairforce," disappointed she is not in the blue. Her tears are real; she is that connected. It was hard for me too. I had to compose it at night, to show different sides of her personality as it changes every night, as opposed to film where you have captured it, and that's the performance. Theater is living art.

A version of this post also appears on Gossip Central.

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Katharina Grosse, Untitled Trumpet, 2015. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Alessandra Chemollo.

The Venice Biennale is built on paradox and contradiction: against the grain of globalization, the Biennale follows a model of representation by nation-states, and its non-commercial structure is undermined by the extravagant cost of mounting an exhibition there. These inconvenient facts have been duly pointed out by art critics disembarking en masse onto Venice's waterlogged streets for the Biennale preview week, with more than one critic seizing the image of "ladies in Louboutins" struggling to keep their footing through the Venice art marathon as the perfect metaphor for the Biennale's inherent contradictions. The city's slow submergence into the Venetian lagoon is also oft quoted, a reliably irresistible analogy for the perceived decline of the art world into a bog of moneyed hypocrisy. The yacht flaunting of the super wealthy is summarily juxtaposed with the political content of the art on view. So when a dock collapsed under the weight of a group of well-heeled patrons heading to an exclusive party at the Fondazione Prada you could almost hear the screams of delight issuing from the art media.

Isaac Julien, DAS KAPITAL Oratorio, 2015. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Andrea Avezzù.

It's from this context that Okwui Enwezor's Biennale Arte exhibition, "All the World's Futures," was quickly characterized as "didactic," "daunting," "unpleasant," "compendious and difficult." The linchpin of Enwezor's exhibition, a marathon reading of all three volumes of Karl Marx's Das Kapital, drew the most scrutiny from the art press on the gap between art's ideals and its realities. The continuous live reading, held in the Biennale's new David Adjaye-designed auditorium in the Giardini, is organized and directed by British artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien. Prior to the Biennale's official opening, across town at the Palazzo Malipiero-Barnabò Julien presented a glittering new film installation--a project produced and underwritten by the Rolls Royce Motor Car Company. The irony of this double booking has not gone unnoticed.

Bruce Nauman, Life, Death, Love, Hate, Pleasure, Pain, 1983. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Alessandra Chemollo.

But the droning undercurrent of Marxist theory at this year's Venice Biennale is more than an empty gesture in a half-empty auditorium. Its literalness makes its implications impossible to ignore, as though Enwezor intended for the entirety of the 56th Venice Biennale--from the curated exhibition at the Arsenale and Giardini, to the national pavilions, to the hundreds of collateral events, to the splashy VIP affairs, and down to the pop-up, off-brand exhibitions and events that sprout from every corner and cul-de-sac of the city--to be regarded through the lens of commodity, labor, and exploitation. Nothing, he seems to suggest, exists outside the system of capital. Just two days after the official opening date of the Biennale, on May 11 a painting by Picasso fetched the headline-grabbing price of $179.4 million at Christie's in New York, contributing to overall sales of a staggering $1.4 billion for the auction house in that week alone. Enwezor couldn't have asked for better case in point demonstrating the perverse disparities of advanced capitalism--and the role art, as commodity, plays in it.

Invisible Borders: The Trans-African Project, A Trans-African Worldspace, 2015. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Alessandra Chemollo.

Gulf Labor Coalition (GLC), Who is building the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, 2015. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Alessandra Chemollo.

Enwezor describes the application of Das Kapital, at the Venice Biennale as "a kind of Oratorio," providing the framework for the choir, ensemble, and soloists that come together to perform "All the World's Futures." Enwezor's soloists contribute the exhibition's landmarks: Bruce Nauman's neon text sculptures; Katharina Grosse's rainbow-painted ruin; the entirety of Harun Farocki's oeuvre of video works. Artist collectives, of which there are nine represented in Enwezor's exhibition, form the ensemble: The Invisible Borders Trans-African Project, an artist-led project founded in Nigeria, presents photo-documentation of their travels throughout the continent; Abounaddara, an anonymous collective of filmmakers creates "emergency cinema" in Syria; The Gulf Labor Coalition speaks out against the exploitation of laborers in the building of the Guggenheim's Abu Dhabi outpost. Sounds float throughout, accompanying the viewer through the Giardini and Arsenale: the tolling of bells, the click of film projectors, the rattle and thud of drums. A few arias of immense beauty and wit emerge: Mika Rottenberg's NoNoseKnows, a fantastical fable centering on a narrative of the production of pearls; and Xu Bing's massive dragons made from construction tools suspended above the dock of the Arsenale.

Xu Bing, Phoenix, 2012-2013. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Alessandra Chemollo.

Critics of the exhibition agree that there are simply too many voices in Enwezor's choir--nearly 140 artists in total--that the sheer quantity simply drowns out the artists with more modest contributions. "You cannot curate an entire world, or all its possible futures," writes Adrian Searle in The Guardian, "That would be God's job, but Enwezor has hubris enough to try." Yet if Enwezor's encompassing vision commits the sin of overwhelming the viewer, it's important to note that this is one of the most inclusive, diverse Biennials on record, with about half of the artists hailing from outside Western Europe and North America.

Chiharu Shiota, The Key in the Hand, 2015. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia and the Japan Pavilion. Photo by Sunhi Mang.

Pamela Rosenkranz, Our Product, 2015, Installation View, Swiss Pavilion, 56th Venice Biennale, 2015. Photo: Marc Asekhame.

Viewers will find some respite from the claustrophobia of theory in the national pavilions' solo presentations, found in every hue and shade. Chiharu Shiota 's poetic installation of keys suspended from a web of red thread in the Japanese Pavilion became an instant favorite, while in the British Pavilion, Sarah Lucas's custard yellow rooms populated by lewd cigarette-vaunting sculptures drew mixed reactions. In the Swiss Pavilion, Pamela Rosenkranz averaged out European skin tones, filling the room with a pool in a shade of fleshy pink. Constructions of steel rebar stick out of a beach of ultramarine sand in the Kosovo Pavilion, a conceit "Speculating on the Blue" by Flaka Haliti.

Flaka Haliti, Speculating on the Blue, 2015, Installation View, Kosovo Pavilion, 56th Venice Biennale, 2015. Courtesy of the Artist and LambdaLambdaLambda. Photo: Marc Krause.

Sean Lynch, Adventure: Capital, 2014-2015. Courtesy of the Artist, Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin, Ronchini Gallery, London and Ireland at Venice.

But the echoes of Marxist critique resound, going beyond Enwezor's purview. In the Irish Pavilion, a video installation by Sean Lynch weaves a narrative around the flow of capital across landscape and history. Both the Canadian and Greek Pavilions feature reconstructions of commercial shops, a Quebecois corner shop and a Greek taxidermist, respectively. Simon Denny's showing for the New Zealand Pavilion centers on the insidious information tactics of the NSA, of which we're only now aware because of the daring actions and sacrifices of one individual, Edward Snowden. Yet it's the conspicuous absence of two national pavilions--Kenya and Costa Rica, who both pulled out amid controversy surrounding their dubious means of funding and/or curating their exhibitions--and the resulting storm of press that perhaps reveals the most about the machinations of the Biennale and its relation to capital. In an odd twist, both exhibitions will be held as originally planned, but without any national or official Biennale affiliation. Symbolical disavowed, but still, awkwardly, present, they stand as a reminder of the Venice Biennale's many strange paradoxes and contradictions.

Simon Denny, Secret Power, 2015. Courtesy la Biennale di Venezia and the New Zealand Pavilion. Photo: Nick Ash.

The 56th Venice Biennale runs from May 9 to November 22, 2015.

--Natalie Hegert

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Resiliency in uncertain times is a major theme for Dwell on Design Los Angeles this year.

The event, to be held May 29 - 31 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, will take a hard look at how to rebuild in the wake of natural disaster - and at strategies for dealing with reduced water usage.

Dwell on Design, Los Angeles, 2014

"Drought and water are at the top of everyone's mind," says Erika Heet, Dwell's Los Angeles editor and editorial director for Dwell on Design. "We'll have discussions on everything from drought resistance in the home and landscape to how to comply with the governor's 25 percent water reduction order."

This year's event is the tenth for Dwell on Design, which started in San Francisco in 2006. It aligns with Dwell's core mission of good design, everywhere, anywhere, anytime, and in any form. It offers consumers and the trade an opportunity to speak with industry experts on issues affecting Los Angeles and California - and beyond.

Dwell on Design, Los Angeles, 2014

"We've invited an expert from the mayor's office to discuss strategies for reducing water usage in homes, landscapes and civic usage," she says. "It's the new normal."

On the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and with memories of Super Storm Sandy still fresh in people's minds, architects and designers are turning their attention to building smarter for the longer term, with a goal of protecting the lives of all the people through design.

Dwell on Design, Los Angeles, 2014

A near-stellar list of speakers includes Adrian Benepe, senior vice president of the New York-based Trust for Public Land and Randy Fiser, chief executive officer of the American Society of Interior Designers.

Top Los Angeles-based schools - USC, UCLA, Sci-Arc, Otis, Art Center College of Design, and Woodbury - will be participating in a charrette on future proofing. "It's about how to employ the latest technology for long-term, human-centric design approaches," she says,.

Seventy percent of the attendees - 31,000 were there last year, from six continents - are from the trade, but plenty of consumers, eagerly engaged in renovation or building, are there too. "They come away with a sense of hope for the future on a global and local scale," she says.

And then there's the fantastic home tour too.

J. Michael Welton writes about architecture, art and design for national and international publications, and publishes a digital design magazine at www.architectsandartisans,com, where portions of this post first appeared. He's also the author of "Drawing from Practice: Architects and the Meaning of Freehand," published by Routledge Press earlier this month.

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In her sexy, stormy, spiritual memoir, Honey in the River, Marsha Scarbrough explores the contemporary relevance of ancient African wisdom teachings, wrapped around a love affair with a married African shaman. The mythology and metaphysics of Ifa, the indigenous religion of the Yoruba people of West Africa, is woven throughout her fast-paced tale that combines spiritual text with descriptions of her experiences in rhythm, dance and deep trance. As she blends archetypal drama and epic soap opera, Marsha reveals and befriends her personal shadow.

I interviewed Marsha about her book and what it was like become so deeply involved with a shaman:

Q: Is this book about voodoo?

MS: "Voodoo" is a mispronunciation of the name of a West African religion that Americans encountered in Haiti. "Voodoo" became a pejorative misnomer for what I experience as a sophisticated system of spirituality. This book is about Ifa, the indigenous religion of the Yoruba people of what is now Nigeria. It is not black magic. In fact, it is not magic at all. Ifa practitioners are clear that what they do is a focused spiritual practice that creates healing by balancing light and dark energies. In the book, I do encounter darkness when someone puts a curse on me, and Ifa practice brings me back into balance. In my experience, this practice is primarily joyful and life-affirming.

Q: Why did you, a middle-aged white American woman, get interested in an obscure, indigenous African religion?

MS: I am a seeker. I studied Buddhism. I trained in martial arts. I practiced dance therapy. I studied healing with a Native American medicine man. When I discovered Ifa, my curiosity was triggered. I was always seeking the next level of spiritual experience, and Ifa promised to take me there.

Q: Who was your teacher?

MS: My teacher was a traditional healer from Nigeria, called a babalawo. He was a diviner as well as a master drummer and ceremonial leader.

Q: Who are the orishas?

MS: Orishas are the deities of Ifa. They were actual historic persons who ascended to divine status after their deaths in the distant past, like Catholic saints, but each orisha also embodies the energy of a natural element. For example, Oshun, the orisha who represents the energy of love and eroticism, is a beautiful woman, but she is also the river. Orishas are also psychological archetypes. We all have all the orishas within us, although one may dominate our behavior.

Q: So the Yoruba people worship many gods?

MS: No. In this mythology, Oludumare is the energy of creation, perhaps equivalent to the western idea of God. Oludumare is the intelligence above all. It's not a being. It's simply energy. The orishas are merely intermediaries between Oludumare and humans.

Q: One of the myths about "Voodoo" is that its followers worship the devil. What did you find out about that?

MS: Ifa does not have the concept of the devil...or of evil. When things go wrong, they are considered out of balance and need to be brought back into harmony through ceremony. One of the orishas, called Eshu, has goat horns and hooves. He is the trickster who lives behind our head and pushes us into self-sabotaging behavior. He is similar to the Shadow in Jungian psychology. When Christians see his image, they project their concept of the devil onto him, but in Ifa practice, once he is honored, he becomes our helper and the messenger to all the other orishas.

Q: Your teacher was polygamous, and you fell in love with him. Were you in a polygamous relationship?

MS: I was open to exploring polygamy because monogamy had not worked particularly well for me. Much of the story of Honey in the River revolves around the difficulties of trying to practice polygamy. It was a worthy experiment. I think we need to look for alternatives to both monogamy and polygamy. I don't have answers, but I did learn that honesty is essential in all relationships.

Q: Did the betrayals and tragedies you describe in Honey in the River leave you disillusioned with Ifa?

MS: Not at all. Ifa is a beautiful spiritual practice. It takes a sophisticated approach to balancing the complexities of human psychology. It uses ancient rhythms to realign our vibrations. It offers practical healing through joyful dance and affirmative chants. Quantum physics has revealed that everything, including us, is simply energy in motion. We are vibration. We are music. Ifa keeps people of all colors in tune with the harmonies of life.

Q: Can we hear that music?

MS: You can. Some of the rhythms and chants I write about in the book can be heard in the Honey in the River Soundtrack available on itunes, Amazon music and CD Baby. Listening along adds another level to the reading experience.

Marsha Scarbrough is the author of Author of Honey in the River: Shadow, Sex and West African Spirituality. (Changemakers Books, John Hunt Publishing Ltd).
www.marshascarbrough.com

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