Hollywood Is Making Fewer Comedies. Should We Care?

MEDIA Posted: July 17, 2019 11:32 am

Call-out and outrage culture make it harder for comedies to pass muster with the vigilantes of social media. – Philadelphia Inquirer

The New Deal, the Arts, and Race — and Today

FDR’s New Deal included the Works Progress Administration, which generously supported the arts in unprecedented ways. Employing writers, composers, visual artists, and performers via Art, Music, and Theater projects, the WPA was a massive employment agency — and the closest Washington had come to emulating European arts subsidies. The Music... Read more

Source: Unanswered Question Published on: 2020-07-05
Outside the Walls: ‘Being Free’

For more than 50 years Ben Vautier has worked "outside the walls,” embracing daily life in its multitude of contradictions. Now, in "Being Free," an exhibition opening July 11 and running through October 11 in Chamarande, France (about 50 minutes south of Paris), he brings together more than 400 works... Read more

Source: Straight|Up Published on: 2020-07-04
Is It a Moon Shot? Nope, It’s a Book Chat.

Follow the countdown—the days, hours, minutes, and yes, even the seconds—to Blake Gopnik's chat with Annalyn Swan about his biography of Andy Warhol. Well, it IS a big book. Big in page count (976). Big in subject (Warhol's influence rivals Picasso's.) Stellar in praise. (I've read only one review that... Read more

Source: Straight|Up Published on: 2020-07-03
Replay: Louis Armstrong plays “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen”

Louis Armstrong plays “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” (interpolating “The Star-Spangled Banner”) on The DuPont Show of the Month: Crescendo, originally telecast live by CBS on September 29, 1957: To read more about the background of this important TV appearance, go here. (This is the latest in a series of... Read more

Source: About Last Night Published on: 2020-07-03
Almanac: Martin Luther King, Jr., on America’s status

“It is a trite yet urgently true observation that if America is to remain a first-class nation, it cannot have second-class citizens.” Martin Luther King, Jr., address to the National Urban League (September 6, 1960) Continue reading Almanac: Martin Luther King, Jr., on America’s status at About Last Night.... Read more

Source: About Last Night Published on: 2020-07-03
Two Silk Strings: Mehrinigor Abdurashidova at the Sharq Taronalari Festival 2019

The Sharq Taronalari Festival of International Music takes place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan every two years. 2019 was the 12th edition, and my 4th time in attendance. The Sharq Taronalari Festival provides an opportunity to hear music not generally well represented on the festival stages we are more familiar with. Central... Read more

Source: OtherWorldly Published on: 2020-07-02
Four months of jazz adaptation, resilience, response to epidemic

In early March – only four months ago – I flew between two of the largest U.S. airports, O’Hare and JFK, to visit New York City. I stayed in an East Village apt. with my daughter and a nephew crashing on her couch. We ate barbecue at a well-attended Jazz... Read more

Source: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published on: 2020-07-02
Almanac: Susan Sontag on depression

“Depression is melancholy minus its charms—the animation, the fits.” Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor Continue reading Almanac: Susan Sontag on depression at About Last Night.... Read more

Source: About Last Night Published on: 2020-07-02
“Live” But Not Too Lively: Auction Torpor (not Fever) at Sotheby’s Evening Sales

As I had anticipated, government strictures prevented Sotheby’s from realizing its tentatively announced plan to hold “live evening and day auctions of Contemporary and Impressionist & Modern Art…in New York the week of 29 June…pending the lifting of certain restrictions and confirmation from the relevant authorities that we can proceed.”... Read more

Source: CultureGrrl Published on: 2020-07-01
Snapshot: a TV interview with Thornton Wilder

Lilli Palmer interviews Thornton Wilder in an extremely rare TV appearance on The Lilli Palmer Show. This clip was originally telecast on NBC in 1952: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) Continue reading Snapshot: a... Read more

Source: About Last Night Published on: 2020-07-01
Almanac: Dodie Smith on depression

“Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.” Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle Continue reading Almanac: Dodie Smith on depression at About Last Night.... Read more

Source: About Last Night Published on: 2020-07-01
The presence of the absence

The last play I saw on stage, Katori Hall’s The Hot Wing King, had a short off-Broadway run before New York’s theaters were closed down in mid-March. Earlier that same week, my beloved wife Hilary had received what would prove all too soon to be an unsuccessful double-lung transplant. She... Read more

Source: About Last Night Published on: 2020-06-30
Lookback: my fifteen favorite songs written for films

From 2010: Today’s episode of Fresh Air is all about the history of songs in Hollywood, and the producers invited those who follow the series on Twitter to vote for their favorite movie song. My snap response was to nominate “The Shadow of Your Smile,” but the more I thought about... Read more

Source: About Last Night Published on: 2020-06-30
Almanac: Kierkegaard on depression

“My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known—no wonder, then, that I return the love.” Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or Continue reading Almanac: Kierkegaard on depression at About Last Night.... Read more

Source: About Last Night Published on: 2020-06-30
A San Francisco Little Mag Subscription-cum-Ad-Rate Card

This is what one looked like in the old days—1968 to be precise—and have a look at those prices. Then check out the contributors.... Read more

Source: Straight|Up Published on: 2020-06-29
Just because: John Steinbeck talks about The Grapes of Wrath in 1952

John Steinbeck talks to the Voice of America about how America has changed since he wrote The Grapes of Wrath. This radio interview was originally broadcast on February 11, 1952: (This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and... Read more

Source: About Last Night Published on: 2020-06-29
Almanac: Ernest Hemingway on writers and depression

“That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not is what is known as The Artist’s Reward.” Ernest Hemingway, letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (September 13, 1929) Continue reading Almanac: Ernest Hemingway on writers and depression at About Last Night.... Read more

Source: About Last Night Published on: 2020-06-29
Bringing Up Baby | Lockdown Theatre Club 16

Watch Bringing Up Baby with Lockdown Theatre Club on Tuesday 30 June. Bringing Up Baby is available on BBC iPlayer. At 8pm everyone presses play and watches together. You can tweet along (#LockdownTheatreClub) or just enjoy the film knowing we’re all part of an audience together. What is Bringing Up... Read more

Source: Performance Monkey Published on: 2020-06-28
The Way the Lines Break

FOR THÉOPHILE GAUTIER This is what is——the serenity of now suspended like cumulus clouds, the night freshened with rain and shafts of white moonlight so bright I can read you by the window. This is the tide hidden from the volcano’s molten flux.... Read more

Source: Straight|Up Published on: 2020-06-26