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☆ Opinion | The ‘Impossible Life’ of Equal Devotion to Art and Mothering
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-01 | by ( Jessica Grose | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“Too much life enters this house,” Tillie Olsen, the writer, labor activist and mother of four daughters, wrote in a letter to the poet Anne Sexton. Olsen and Sexton were among the early recipients of a paid fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study. In some ways, remarkable progress has been made for American women since then — at the time, for example, it was perfectly legal to fire a woman for getting pregnant. (In other ways, we have returned to the 19th century.) The book made me ponder whether some of the conflicts that parents feel between their family responsibilities and other parts of their lives can be fully resolved.

Persons: ” Tillie Olsen, Anne Sexton, “, lunchpacking —, Olsen, Sexton, Maggie Doherty’s, Radcliffe’s, Mary Ingraham Bunting, Maxine Kumin, Barbara Swan, Marianna Pineda Organizations: Radcliffe Institute for Independent, Art Locations: midcentury America, Doherty’s

☆ Composer, Uninterrupted: Christian Wolff at 90
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-02 | by ( Steve Smith | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

If artistic stature worked by osmosis, Christian Wolff could claim greatness based on that alone. “My father met Brahms,” he said, easing into conversation at a sturdy wooden table in the dining room of his Hanover, N.H., home. Wolff’s father was 6 or 7. Wolff’s grandfather, a violinist, conductor and professor, knew Brahms personally and professionally, he said. Wolff, who turns 90 on Friday, is associated with a different pantheon.

Persons: Christian Wolff, “, Brahms, ”, Clara Schumann’s, Wolff’s, Robert Schumann, Wolff, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, David Tudor, Merce Cunningham, John Ashbery, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg Organizations: New York School Locations: Hanover, N.H, Bonn, Germany, New York

☆ Leonard Bernstein’s Children Defend Bradley Cooper’s Prosthetic Nose in ‘Maestro’
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-16 | by ( Marc Tracy | More About Marc Tracy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Leonard Bernstein’s three children came to the defense of the actor and director Bradley Cooper on Wednesday after he drew fresh criticism for wearing a large prosthetic nose in his portrayal of the midcentury American composer and conductor, who was Jewish, in the forthcoming movie “Maestro.”When the makeup was first revealed last year, some questioned the decision by Cooper, who is not Jewish, to play Bernstein, who died in 1990. In the Netflix film, he stars opposite Carey Mulligan as Bernstein’s wife, Felicia Montealegre Bernstein. The debut of a teaser trailer on Tuesday prompted further discussion on social media about both the prosthesis, which critics said played into an antisemitic trope, and about whether an actor who is Jewish should instead have been cast to play Bernstein, the “West Side Story” composer and music director of the New York Philharmonic.

Persons: Leonard Bernstein’s, Bradley Cooper, Maestro, ”, Cooper, Bernstein, Carey Mulligan, Felicia Montealegre Bernstein Organizations: Netflix, New York Philharmonic Locations: American

☆ A Time Capsule of Human Creativity, Stored in the Sky
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-27 | by ( J. D. Biersdorfer | More About J. D. Biersdorfer | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Later this year, the Lunar Codex — a vast multimedia archive telling a story of the world’s people through creative arts — will start heading for permanent installation on the moon aboard a series of unmanned rockets. The Lunar Codex is a digitized (or miniaturized) collection of contemporary art, poetry, magazines, music, film, podcasts and books by 30,000 artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers in 157 countries. It’s the brainchild of Samuel Peralta, a semiretired physicist and author in Canada with a love of the arts and sciences. Some works were commissioned for the project, including “The Polaris Trilogy: Poems for the Moon,” a collection of poetry from every continent, including Antarctica. He has also accepted works submitted by individual artists.

Persons: “, ”, Wes Anderson’s, Samuel Peralta, Ayana Ross, Pauline Aubey, Alex Colville, Peralta Locations: Asteroid, Canada, Ukraine, Antarctica, Toronto

☆ A Lesson in Tender, Tangy Lemon Bars
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-24 | by ( Genevieve Ko | More About Genevieve Ko | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

I had no idea what lemon bars were. My classmates said that my new school would turn my Chinese American self into a banana or a Twinkie — yellow on the outside, white within. Because the lemon bars didn’t taste like a loss of identity, but an expansion of it. But from-scratch treats from midcentury Americana were foreign to me — and lemon bars tasted especially mysterious, at once sour and sweet, rich and sharp. The next year, Betty Crocker’s “Cooky Book” included a recipe for Lemon Squares, which extended its popularity beyond local community cookbooks.

Persons: Eleanore Mickelson, Betty Crocker’s “ Organizations: Chicago Tribune Locations: East Asia, Mexico, Eden, Los Angeles

☆ To Truly Understand the Past, Pick Up an Old Magazine
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Brian Dillon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

And not a single mention yet of AIDS; in a Wrangler ad, a model’s speech bubble announces, oblivious: “I’m Positive.” In these magazine pages, it both is and is not the 1984 of my memory. “Priceless flotsam they seemed to us then,” Elizabeth Hardwick once wrote, recalling her youthful fascination with old jazz records. I’ve long felt the same way about magazines, old and new. Old magazines are cheap time machines, archaeologies of collective desire. Find a print issue, specialist or popular, preferably more than 20 years old (though 10 may do the trick), and read it from cover to cover.

Persons: Kate Bush, won’t, ” It’s, Roland, ” Elizabeth Hardwick, Joan Didion, ”, Hardwick, Alberto Giacometti, Gordon Parks, William Klein Organizations: Vogue Locations: London, New York, Dublin, ., Mexico City

☆ Review: ‘The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,’ Uneven Yet a Powerful Draw
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Laura Collins-Hughes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Sidney Brustein, whom she has placed at the center of this crowded tragicomedy, is not an interesting person. (The play is a Tony nominee for best revival; Silverman is its only acting nominee.) Terrible at business, he has just bought a local newsweekly without mentioning it to Iris, because theirs is nowhere near a marriage of equals. The title nods to that: It’s Sidney’s window, not Iris’s too, even though it is in their living room. Sidney finds a smidgen of purpose when he agrees to back his politician friend Wally (Andy Grotelueschen), and puts a campaign sign in the window, advocating reform.

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