Tom Clark, Poet And Biographer Of Poets, Has Died At 77
Clark was hit by a car and killed on Friday, not too long after updating his blog. He was friends with the Beat Poets, wrote a biography of Jack Kerouac, and was editor of the Paris Review from 1963-1973. The publisher of his 2010 poetry collection wrote that his recent "depict nocturnal walks in Berkeley, California — not the Berkeley of a faded, nostalgic, radical past, but rather the multi-cultural Berkeley of today that circulates in the streets outside the university gates." … Read More
A German Gallery Cuts Ties With One Of Its Artists Over His Views On Immigration
Artist Axel Klause expressed some quite conservative views on Facebook - and his gallery of 13 years said that it couldn't continue the relationship. One of the Leipzig gallery's partners: "I’m not a public institution or an institution of public interest. I have a commercial gallery where I organize and sell exhibitions, and I don’t have to represent every viewpoint that exists in society." … Read More
How One Stand-Up Comedian Copes With A Devastating Loss
Comedian Adam Cayton-Holland: "I don’t really have a joke about it. It’s more like a public service announcement that I make into the microphone, urging people to seek help, urging people to not feel ashamed of feeling powerless when it comes to their brains. You can see the audience tense up. I pepper in a few jokes here and there, to try to cut the tension. Which kind of works. It’s not perfect, but it’s real." … Read More
The Baltimore Symphony Is Going International For The First Time In 13 Years
Principal horn player Philip Munds was with the orchestra the last time they went abroad in 2005, and he's missed it: "It’s really good for the orchestra to play in different places. ... It makes you step it up. It broadens our awareness and gets us hyper-focused." … Read More
In A Painful Year Of Loss, One Of The Last Great Culinary Idols Keeps On Going
Madhur Jaffrey, actor and cookbook writer, will not call herself a chef, but her cooking has changed the world. Then there's this: "A now-famous appearance, in the ’90s, on one of Julia Child’s shows. Watching an extra-tall Julia coo and flutter, as Madhur regally goes through the instructions on making shrimp in spicy coconut sauce — as the coriander seeds hiss, and the fenugreek pop — is (thank you, YouTube!) an adventure in odd-couple gold." … Read More
In A Europe Disturbed By Anti-Muslim Sentiment, This Exhibit Makes A Statement
The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, is acknowledging the way the Italian Renaissance depended on - and exchanged ideas and goods with - Muslim countries. The exhibit is a "scholarly riposte" to a world in which, "today, Italians have little exposure to the Islamic world beyond the Muslims living in their midst — many of them recent immigrants — and media reports of Mideast wars and Islamist-inspired terrorism. That tense context has led some to associate Islam with violence and spawned anti-Muslim sentiments." … Read More
Why Don’t More Boys – And Girls, For That Matter – Read ‘Little Women’ In School?
Teaching Huck Finn is near universal, but Little Women? What if the boys don't like it? "As far as I can tell, no one is concerned about whether 12-year-old girls are engaged by Tom Sawyer. But their reaction is not what concerns educators. It’s the boys’ responses they are worried about." … Read More
Late-Night TV Has Several Problems, But One Is That There’s An Awful Lot Of It
And there was more of it before Netflix abruptly canceled Michelle Wolf's and Joel McHale's late-night format programs. What if viewers simply don't exist for this kind of show anymore? Even "Conan O’Brien, TV’s longest-serving late-night personality, is poised to take his hour-long Conan on TBS to 30 minutes next year." … Read More
Google Employees Are In Revolt Over The Company’s China Policies
"Don't be evil" is long gone, obviously, but this time, Google may have gone too far. "China considers censorship a state secret, vastly restricting what Google can tell even its own employees about what its plans are. Meanwhile, a group of at least 1,400 employees is leading a charge to stop Dragonfly in its tracks." … Read More
Do Actors With Southern Accents Get A Fair Shake In Hollywood?
Does anyone in charge in Hollywood even know what "a Southern accent" is? "I’ve had people ask, 'Can you teach me a Southern accent?' I’m like, ‘O.K. What state? What part of the state? What culture?'" … Read More
Janice Tchalenko, Who Has Died At 76, Bridged Art And Commerce With Her Ceramics
In tune with her socialist politics, she created art for, and with, the people - but she also "revolutionised the field, shocking many studio potter colleagues, by evolving glazes of great richness and depth of colour to adorn reduction-fired stoneware; painting, sponging and slip-trailing complex semi-abstract decorative schema on bold simplified shapes; using piscatorial and amphibian casts as handles and knops; and taking inspiration from the ceramics of the Middle East, from the capricious mannerist Bernard Palissy, and from European rococo earthenware and porcelain and 19th century art pottery." Whew. … Read More
Amazon May Be About To Buy A Movie Theatre Chain, And Wow, Are There A Lot Of Reactions
If Amazon does buy Landmark, will it just show its own content? Probably not - Amazon Studios are moving away from arthouse, award-winning content for more popular fare. One (terrifying to movie fans) option: "Esports and other forms of live-gaming, Ark and VR location-based experiences — communal entertainment in the 21st century is evolving past just sitting in a darkened theater quietly watching the same two-hour film as the strangers next to you. A company such as Amazon could take these spaces and outfit them for that purpose." … Read More
The Virgin Mary, Says One Artist, Is Getting Evicted By Gentrification
The artist, Nico Avina, is trying to alert Los Angeles' Boyle Heights to what it's losing as rising rents drive out its Latinx population - people, murals, and especially paintings of la Virgen de Guadalupe. That's why he brings a foldable, 7-1/2-foot tall Virgin Mary with him all over the neighborhood. … Read More
In Praise Of Aretha Franklin’s Album ‘Amazing Grace’
Wesley Morris breaks the album down, and says it was made for a time when albums meant something. This album still does. "Her going for the max maxes you out. This is what virtuosity should do — leave you knock-kneed, perform the unthinkable." … Read More
One Powerful Family Creates Dance Spectacles In Spain
The family isn't new to the club or dance game. "They are the Medicis of raving, with a dynasty spanning back to 1870. Six generations of Arnaus have worked in entertainment, from a 19th-century ancestor who opened Café Josepet, the first social club in Fraga, 95 miles west of Barcelona, through to 50s-era music halls and 80s electro clubs." And they want to keep expanding. … Read More
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Chief Financial Officer
Theatre Communications Group, the national organization for the American theatre, seeks a dynamic and entrepreneurial Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to assume a pivotal role in the overall management … [Read More]
The Power, And Problems, Of Rereading A Certain Series And Realizing You’re Ron, Not Harry
Two friends in very different circumstances try to reread together, but it's not the same - especially when it comes to the magic mirror that shows someone's deepest desires. "This shift in her life’s longing was so obviously different from mine that we could no longer avoid the fact of our 12-year separation." … [Read More]
Taking A ‘Concept’ Show On Tour Is Totally Acceptable, Critic Says
Lyn Gardner: Consider the issue that "many British artists and companies cannot hope to make a living in the UK and desperately need international touring fees" - but that Brexit is taking those international opportunities away. Perhaps the 'concept' show can fill in, at least if companies work together. … [Read More]
Netflix Deletes Ten Years Of User Reviews
Netflix is like, oh, people aren't using the reviews! But actually ... there were a lot of reviews, including a lot of negative reviews, of its original content. Oh. … [Read More]
Boots Riley, Director Of ‘Sorry To Bother You,’ Is Not Joining The Celebratory Reviews Of The New Spike Lee Movie
Riley says that despite his deep love and appreciation for Lee, the new movie BlackkKlansman is not what African Americans need right now. Riley: "This is being pushed as a true story, and it is precisely its untrue elements that make a cop a hero against racism. ... For Spike to come out with a movie where a story points are fabricated in order to make Black cop and his counterparts look like allies in the fight against racism is really disappointing, to put it very mildly." … [Read More]
Artists Get A New, Huge Canvas: The Tennis Court
The pictures from above are truly amazing - but how do the players know where they are? "This project, 'Art Courts,' was spearheaded by the United States Tennis Association as part of a 50th anniversary celebration of the U.S. Open. Organizers hope to inject a dash of enthusiasm and color into community tennis courts in underserved neighborhoods — as well as enliven a sport that, to some, possesses a reputation for stuffiness and adherence to rules." … [Read More]
Controversial: Where Our Speech Patterns Come From
Tracing the linguistic path of mmhmm, and many other words commonly used today, from West Africa to the U.S. South is difficult, is riddled with controversy — and experts say it has lingering effects on how the speech of African-Americans is perceived. … [Read More]
London’s National Theatre Commits To Telling Actors If They Haven’t Been Cast
“It is vital that we pay respect to the actors we meet by always acknowledging their work and contribution to the casting process, which is why the NT wholly supports the #YesOrNo initiative.” He added that while the NT is not always able to make decisions right away, it will let actors know if they have been successful as soon as possible. The #YesOrNo campaign was started after actors criticised the practice of not telling auditionees if that had been unsuccessful. … [Read More]
Closing Down UK Ticket Reselling Sites Won’t Stop Ticket Reselling
"Live music is the one part of the music industry generating sustained profits, which has meant that the balance of power has swung from record labels and artists to promoters such as Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster. The defence offered until now by Ticketmaster is that Seatwave existed to facilitate fans – both those wishing to offload tickets for an event they could not longer attend and anyone who’d missed out when a concert went on sale initially. It was undeniable, however, that professional resellers were milking the service for easy profits." … [Read More]
Aretha Is A Shooting Star (No, Really – They Named An Asteroid After Her)
249516 Aretha measures two to three kilometers, or less than two miles, across. It orbits between Mars and Jupiter, one of hundreds of thousands of known asteroids that reside between the two planets. It takes about five and a half years to make one trip around the sun. … [Read More]
Morality And US Higher Education, A (Fascinating) History
The transformation of American colleges and universities into corporate concerns is particularly evident in the maze of offices, departments and agencies that manage the moral lives of students. When they appeal to administrators with demands that speakers not be invited, that particular policies be implemented, or that certain individuals be institutionally sanctioned, students are doing what our institutions have formed them to do. They are following procedure, appealing to the institution to manage moral problems, and relying on the administrators who oversee the system. … [Read More]