Olivia Drake
David LowA performance/installation work by Aki Sasamoto ’04, titled "Strange Attractors" will be on view as part of the 2010 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art (945 Madison Avenue at 75th St., 212-570-3600, www.whitney.org/Exhibitions/2010Biennial) from Feb. 25–May 30 in New York City. Sasamoto will be performing occasionally as part of the installation (on days of the month that contain the numbers 6, 9, 16, 19, 26 and 29) at 4 p.m., a.k.a. 16 o’clock. She applies mathematical concepts to personal life stories, while somehow making sense of her kaleidoscopic worldview. She says that her work deals with such varied…
Cynthia RockwellThe pilot for Sound Tracks: Music Without Borders, aired nationally on PBS in late January. Described as a magazine show “about the intersection of music with life, politics and culture around the world,” it is a collaboration between two alumni of the class of ’70—executive producer Stephen Talbot and executive producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting David Davis. The first episode includes a vignette on Russian pop: "A Man Like Putin” is a catchy tune that became a generation’s anthem. Another section takes the listener to Africa, where Nigerian music legend Fela Kuti’s youngest son, Seun, has kept his father’s legacy alive…
Something Sweet, Nina Zeitlin’s ’03 family/kids’ album, was named in the Top 10 on NPR’s “2009 Best Music for Kids and Their Families." In a story for WXPN’sKids Corner in Philadelphia, host Kathy O’Connell noted that she’d remember 2009 as “the gold standard in kids’ music,” and included Zeitlin’s musical ensemble, King Pajama, as one of the groups “whose kid-centric themes (love of the library, train rides, ice cream) provide a clue to their intended audience, since the songs themselves work for everyone.” Zeitlin, a sociology major at Wesleyan, sang, recorded and produced the collection, which also won a 2009…
John Ravenal ’81 is now president of his professional organization: the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC). The Sydney and France Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Ravenal has become the fourth president of AAMC since the organization was founded in 2001. Ravenal joined the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) in 1998, and his exhibitions have included Vanitas: Meditations on Life and Death in Contemporary Art; Outer & Inner Space, a history of video art; and Artificial Light, displayed at VCUarts Anderson Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary…
Dr. Joseph J. Fins ’82 has been elected president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. His election to this two-year term, which begins in 2011, recognizes his major contributions to bioethics, as well as his broad expertise in the field. Fins is chief of the Division of Medical Ethics and a faculty member at Weill Cornell Medical College. He is also director of medical ethics at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and chairs its ethics committee. "I am honored to have been elected, and I look forward to encouraging the contributions of my esteemed colleagues in bioethics…
The successful CBS sitcom, How I Met Your Mother, had its milestone 100th episode on Jan. 11. The show was created by Carter Bays ’97 and Craig Thomas ’97, who serve as executive producers and writers for the program. The series deals humorously with the lives of a group of friends living in New York. How I Met Your Mother gets its title from a framing device: the main character, Ted Mosby (played Josh Radnor, with narration by Bob Saget) in the year 2030 recounts to his son and daughter the events that led to his meeting their mother. The…
The critically acclaimed film and television director Michael Arteta ’89 (Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl, Six Feet Under) has directed a new film, Youth in Revolt, which is based on the cult novel by C. D. Payne. The film opened nationwide to generally positive reviews on Feb. 8. The work had previously been shown at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and will be part of the upcoming Berlin Film Festival Generation lineup. The movie stars the popular young actor Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Superbad, Juno) who plays a frustrated 16-year-old virgin named Nick Twisp. Cera’s character takes on…
Grammy Award nominations were announced on Dec. 2. Tierney Sutton ’86 and her band received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album for their album Desire (Telarc). In a review of the recording on All About Jazz.com, Carl L. Hager wrote, "Singer Tierney Sutton’s Desire is the kind of provocative musical work that could change the way a listener hears music. It is an album that is meant to spiritually provoke. It arrests, alarms, it even terrifies." MGMT's Ben Goldwasser ’05 and Andrew Vanwyngarden ’05 received two Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and Best Pop Performance by…
In Skyscraper: The Politics and Power of Building New York City in the Twentieth Century (University of Pennsyvania Press), Benjamin Flowers ’96 explores the role of culture and ideology in shaping the construction of skyscrapers, as well as the way wealth and power have operated to reshape the urban landscape. He studies closely the creation and reception of three major architectural sites: the Empire State Building, the Seagram Building, and the World Trade Center. Flowers wrote his new book using a broad array of archival sources, such as corporate records, architects' papers, newspaper ads, and political cartoons. He reveals how…
In Impurity of Blood: Defining Race in Spain, 1870–1930 (LSU Press), Joshua Goode ’91 traces the development of racial theories in Spain from 1870 to 1930 and explores the Spanish proposition that racial mixture, rather than racial purity, was the bulwark of national strength. He begins his study with a history of ethnic thought in Spain in the medieval and early modern era, and then details the formation of racial thought in Spain’s nascent human sciences. He examines the political, social and cultural manifestations of racial thought at the dawn of the Franco regime and, finally, discusses its ramifications in…
Jeffrey Richards ’69 continues to bring challenging and entertaining work to Broadway, having been a co-producer recently of the Tony Award-winning shows Spring Awakening, August: Osage County and Hair. This winter, he is one of the producers of Race by David Mamet (Speed-the-Plow, Oleanna), which opened on Broadway on December 6 at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. In this drama, a firm made up of three lawyers, two black and one white, is offered the chance to defend a white man charged with a crime against a young black woman. The cast includes James Spader (Boston Legal), Kerry Washington (Ray), David…