Yearly Archives: 2021
Why Are The Met’s Trustees Sitting Idle While The Museum Contemplates Selling Its Treasures?
The problem isn't earned income lost to tourism (that is, no tourism). The problem is the trustees. "Met trustees established a special fund to...
Missing ‘Bridgerton’? Turn To TikTok
First there was Ratatouille: The Musical or Ratatousical, which raised more than a million dollars for actors, with the no doubt bemused blessing of...
Cole Porter Created A Pro-Immigration Protest Ballet In The 1920s
Of course he did. "Like modern immigration laws, the Emergency Quota Act inspired a wave of pro-immigration activism, and Porter, who was born...
Legendary Casting Director Lynn Stalmaster Has Died At 93
You know his work even if you don't know of the man. "Stalmaster’s accomplishments are too numerous to list exhaustively, but among them: He...
The Modernist Poet Who Understood The Precarity Of Civilization
Aime Césaire, whose Discourse on Colonialism remains (all too) relevant - and who protested to some effect in 2005after French President Jacques Chirac instructed...
What The ‘To All The Boys’ Trilogy Has Meant For Its Star
Lana Condor on the To All the Boys I've Loved Before trilogy author Jenny Han: "When we first were talking years ago, she said,...
Will Covid-19 Kill The Pandemic Movie?
Maybe, but then again, the form has a way of shifting with new information to meet the times. However, it will have to be...
Brenda Ballin, Longtime And Well Loved Guide At The Met, 91
Ballin started volunteering as a docent in the 1970s. "Whatever lucky group she had in tow was pretty much guaranteed a good show. Along...
The Secret Life Of Museums During Lockdowns In The UK
Each lockdown has meant something different for the staff, especially of science and natural history museums. For instance, James Maclaine, senior fish curator at...
The Indianapolis Museum Of Art’s Job Ad Asked Director To Maintain A ‘Traditional, Core,...
The explanation of the current CEO and director of the Indianapolis Museum didn't, perhaps, help. Charles L. Venable said that "the decision to use...
What We Talk About When We Talk About Amy Tan
Maybe Asian American writers should stop dissing Tan. "I understand the resistance to being lumped in with her; I feel it, too. But when...
Can Theatre Help Heal The United States’ Political Divides?
Well, that sounds hokey. But it's powerful, a program from Georgetown that, a co-founder says, shows "there is a particular power that performance has,...
How A Few Women, In Just A Couple Of Years, Changed The Course Of...
Women Artists for Revolution (W.A.R., of course) weren't shy about their rallying cry in 1969. "The group ignited a robust movement against gender discrimination...
What’s The Best Place To Work (And Work Only) From Home?
Turns out it might not be sitting on the couch behind your daughter in the TV room. (Who could have known, pre-pandemic?) - Fast...
Get Watching: The First Oscars Shortlists Are Out
Of course, we've all probably been watching quite a few things during the past year, but have those things included Academy-honored movies? Time to...
A Right-Wing Mayor Opens Museums In France Despite National Restrictions
Not that left-wing art-lovers can't sympathize (and a socialist mayor in another town is planning to defy the national orders as well), but ......
Malls And Nail Salons Are Open, But Not Museums?
Dear Gavin Newsom, this makes no sense at all. Signed, a lot of LACMA and other art-lovers in California. Weirdly: "LACMA can open its...
Why Some Are Inclined To Be Seduced By Conspiracy Theories
In the face of complicated events, bewildering new technologies, and sometimes contradictory information, the explanatory power of some occult yet totalizing narrative easily overmasters...
Dramatic Stone Henge Discovery In Wales Suggests Irish History
Its diameter of 110m is identical to the ditch that encloses Stonehenge, and it is aligned on the midsummer solstice sunrise, just like the Wiltshire...
A Norwegian Book Festival Becomes 12 Global Festivals
"One of the things I wasn’t thinking about, but which is very obvious to me now, is the great value of having each festival...
Getting Behind The Real Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom occasionally shades into Saint Tom, thanks to a notably ample collection of friends who remark on his generosity and kindness. He remembers...
Pennsylvania Governor Proposes Zeroing Out Funds For Public TV
The state has issued $750,000 to seven stations annually since 2019. The funding, which is divided evenly among the stations, supports technology needs and...
Needed: A Philosophical Means Of Regarding Technology
We live in a technopoly, a society in which powerful technologies come to dominate the people they are supposed to serve, and reshape us...
Empty Movie Theaters Are Being Rented Out To Video Gamers
The cinema chain Malco has been doing this in six Southern states since November, and the South Korean chain CGV started it in January....
Do We Have The Will To Stop Invention Of A Doomsday Device?
What we haven’t pulled out yet is a black ball: a technology that invariably destroys the civilisation that invents it. That’s not because we’ve...
