Yearly Archives: 2021
Hollywood, Like Many Americans, Has Been Looking For Villains In All The Wrong Places
And casting villains, that is to say law enforcement and others deeply committed to white supremacy, as heroes. But the new documentary MLK/FBI isn't...
Artist Kim Tschang-Yuel, 91, Painter Of Water – And The Trauma Of War
"Kim’s drops can seem to sit miraculously atop his raw canvases or be in the midst of gliding down them, leaving a trail of...
A Black Dance Company In Los Angeles Gets Serious Funding
Black arts groups are "historically passed over for foundation funding of this magnitude," but the Lula Washington Dance Theatre won over its grantors. The...
Trey Devey Shares his passion for Arts Education
“If we are empowered with creativity, with collaboration, with all of the skills that come from practicing the arts… that will lead to the...
The Inaugural Poet, 22 Years Old, Is Probably The Youngest In US History
Amanda Gorman will read a poem called "The Hill We Climb" at the inaugural ceremony on Wednesday (assuming it goes according to plan). "Unlike...
What A New Video Game Teaches Us About The Ancient Greeks And Masculinity
For one thing, "we need to reorient our understanding of gender and beauty to talk about hotness in antiquity." - Wired
The Biggest Mystery Of Bridgerton Is About That News Pamphlet
What's Lady Whistledown's business model? Seriously: To produce and print enough scandal sheets to feed the appetite of the ton, surely Lady Whistledown owns...
The Musical Fantasy World Created By Teens That Has Spawned Three Concept Albums For...
Yes, it's partly because of TikTok and the world of duets, collaborations, and free-flowing (but in this case, very directed) creativity. But it's so...
Hey America, Our To-Do Lists Will Never Get Shorter
Well, not in the foreseeable future, anyway, unless we can accept some "okayist" awards instead of trying to be number one all of the...
Coventry Rebuilt Itself After WWII, But Now Town Planners Want To Knock Those Buildings...
Coventry is the UK 2021 city of culture. But ... yikes. "Much of the city’s pioneering postwar urban fabric is under threat. A gargantuan...
Can TV Writers Help Curb The Pandemic?
TV writers have helped changed public opinion on drunk driving, cigarette smoking, and - in the opposite direction - marriage equality. Why not mask-wearing,...
Dancers Are Still Trying To Break Down Gender Stereotypes In Ballet
Ashton Edwards, an 18-year-old student at the Pacific Northwest Ballet's Professional Division, got tired of studying for and dancing "male roles." Last year, the...
Mary Catherine Bateson, Author Of ‘Composing A Life’ And Daughter Of Margaret Mead, 81
Bateson, an anthropologist like her famous parents Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, had a busy and famously documented life. "Still, it wasn’t her babyhood, her...
The True Events That Inspired The Movie One Night In Miami
The film is based on a one-act play by Kemp Powers (a long one-act play), and the playwright calls it "a work of fiction...
An Author And Editor Says To Stop Thinking Books Have Meaning For Everyone
Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning: "I grew up middle class and I went to school, and from the school bus you’d see kids...
The Movie Soul Is About A Black Man, But In Some Countries, He’s Voiced...
Europe, excuse us, but what are you doing? "Asta Selloane Sekamane, one of the activists who criticized the casting ... said in an interview...
The Stagehands Union Says It’s Time To Let Them Run Mass Vaccine Sites In...
This seems almost too obvious when one considers it. The people who know how to set up almost any kind of venue, run crowd...
Unlocking The Technology Of Relationships
What does it look like when a small-scale, long-term community effort in Detroit is connected to a small-scale, long-term community effort in Seattle or...
Brexit Deal Visa Requirements Stymie UK Musicians
As it stands, British musicians may be forced to pay for country-specific visas and equipment carnets when touring the continent – a situation that...
Lessons From 40 Years Performing Online
"Everything about the experience of using a computer is still flat, everything uses these windows, but then we also have high-speed processes that allow...
Why Conspiracy Theories Are So Attractive To So Many
Experts say that the majority of people do not easily fall for falsehoods. But when misinformation offers simple, casual explanations for otherwise random events,...
Why Have Sea Shanties Become A TikTok Sensation?
Why sea shanties, and why now? I do not have any concrete ideas about this; all I can tell you is that it’s happening....
Ten Takeaways From Variety’s Entertainment Summit
"A common misconception is that niche shows geared toward specific audiences will not fare as well as more universal programs, but Lucinda Martinez, executive...
This Old Dutch Master’s Art Is Totally Homoerotic — How Did Everyone Miss This...
Powerfully muscled backs, piston thighs, meaty buttocks you could bounce quarters off for days. "In a flare of lusty creativity, from the late 1580s...
Learning How Not To Read Like A Critic
"One of the first lessons you learn in grad school is to hide your personal taste or risk being shamed for liking the wrong...
