Yearly Archives: 2021
The Orwell Prizes Go To Up-To-The-Moment Political Books
Ali Smith won for her Summer, the concluding novel in her seasonal quartet - and one that encompasses Brexit, Australian wildfires, COVID-19, and the...
France’s New Privately Funded Arts Complex
Arles is famous for Van Gogh and for its Roman ruins. Now there's a new show in town: Luma. "The center doesn’t fit neatly...
The Pandemic Silenced These Instruments
And the virus killed two of the three "marimba healers" of Los Angeles, men who restored the old, cracked, broken marimbas of the area's...
The Choreographers And Dancers Of TikTok Go On Strike
At least, the Black choreographers and dancers do - following the lead of dancer Erick Lewis, who posted a massively viral video saying, "This...
The French Impressionists Had No Idea They Were Painting Masterpieces-To-Be
Of course they didn't, even if some of them believed their work deserved that rating. "It’s easy to forget that for most of them...
Even In Pride Month, Hollywood Steers Away From Asian American LGBTQIA Stories
Director Quentin Lee: "Creating queer Asian content is hard because you're really hitting on two major issues of America that are challenging." But he...
Richard Altuna, Who Designed Upwardly Mobile Shopping Experiences, And Starbucks, 70
The world of brick-and-mortar stores would look very different without Altuna, who "designed the prototypes for a certain kind of store, one that infused...
Summer Is A Scam
But there are a few ways to fix it. - The New York Times
The Writers Trying To Save The World Through Fiction
The novelists hope: "As long as we continue to think and to tell stories, we are not necessarily doomed." Perhaps. - The Guardian (UK)
No Mass Outbreaks From The UK’s Test Events
Great, 58,000 people and only 28 positives - but at the time of the test events, "virus levels were low and testing before and...
Halo Wines, Eminence Of Washington-Area Theatre Scene, 81
Wines was an actress and director who was enrolled as a child in acting lessons to help her overcome shyness. She "brought consummate artistry...
William Randolph Hearst Bought A Medieval Spanish Monastery And Shipped It To California
But then the 1175 monastery of Santa MarÃa de Óvila wasted away some time in crates on a San Francisco pier. - El Pais...
Violinist Jeanne Lamon, Who Led Tafelmusik For 33 Years, Has Died At 71
In Canada, she brought Baroque music played on period instruments into the modern era. "Under her guidance — and with her often leading from...
The Longstanding, Fascist Focused, Whitewashing Of Rome
Rome was hardly white, whether in architecture or demographics. But historically, Europeans and white Americans - and especially Mussolini and his followers - have...
What University Theatre Programs Need To Do For Their Students And Educators Of Color
There are issues: "Many educators of color find themselves entering or working at predominantly white institutions (PWIs) with little guidance on how to push...
The Author Who Wanted To Write A New King Lear
Anne Enright on The Green Road on having a plan for her plot, her idea to write a new King Lear: "The children had...
Gaming May Actually Benefit Your Brain
For one thing, "action games in particular—games where reflexes, reaction time, and hand-eye coordination are challenged, like in the now-retro classics Doom and Team Fortress Classic—provided tangible...
Alone In Rome, Before The Tourists Return
Italy was the first to lock down, and one of the hardest lockdowns. "Now most of Italy is in a 'white zone,' and museums...
Recording Academy Settles With Its Former CEO Deborah Dugan
The move is the latest in a series led by Recording Academy chief Harvey Mason, jr. that reflect an effort to at least calm...
How Abstract Ideas Shape Our Practical Perceptions
They are imbued with grandeur precisely because of their superb indifference to mundane human concerns. Having knowledge is practically useful, but why would we...
Taking A Turn At The Culture Of Trees
It feels as if there has been a dendrocentric turn in culture recently; a new sensitivity to the arboreal and, more broadly, the botanical....
Why Do People Feel Compelled To Correct Others’ Mispronunciations?
Why do people pronounce words differently, why does pronunciation change, and why does so-called mispronunciation upset some people to the point of making it...
By The Bay, Bhangra Meets Bollywood And Struts It On YouTube
"Today, artists like Toor, 31, are changing the way that bhangra and other Indian dance genres are seen, creating dances meant to be consumed...
John Cage, Harry Hay And LA’s Pioneering Place In Gay Rights
Gay Angelenos like to remind their counterparts to the north and east that L.A. played a crucial, perhaps decisive, role in gay-rights history. Five...
What You Get When You Cross Opera With Prestige TV
"Desert In is an operatic experiment. Co-produced by Long Beach Opera and by Boston Lyric Opera, which commissioned the work, the eight-episode streaming miniseries...
