Yearly Archives: 2021
Josephine Baker To Be Instated In France’s Panthéon
The expatriate American singer-dancer, who arrived in Paris in 1925 and became a legend, will become only the sixth woman, and the first Black...
Broadway Power Brokers Sign On To Transformative Diversity Reforms
The agreement commits Broadway and its touring productions not only to the types of diversity training and mentorship programs that have become common in...
Some Detective Work: Company Says It’s Figured Out The Deepfakes In Bourdain Documentary
If the company’s analysis is correct, the deepfake Bourdain controversy is rooted in less than 50 seconds of audio in the 118-minute film. -...
A Universal Translator Powered By AI
Aleph Alpha, a startup in Heidelberg, Germany, has built one of the world’s most powerful AI language models. Befitting the algorithm's European origins, it...
Music Critics Make Errors In Judgment All The Time. Why?
Crudely put, it occurs when you don’t have the right conceptual tools for the job. The result is an inability to make sense of...
HipHop Joy Is A Powerful Protest
Hip-hop is so accessible to everybody – where maybe ballet and other styles of dance might have felt unattainable, with hip-hop, the only criteria is...
Getting To Know The Shocking Shirley Jackson
To one angry reader, Jackson responded with a single line: “If you don’t like my peaches, don’t shake my tree.” - Shondaland
What Makes A Song Great – Lyrics Or Music?
While a melody can tether you to a song, however, it’s the lyrics that make you want to excavate it. The best songs pull...
When Hoaxes Were Invented And The Era Of English Gullibility
The rise of newspapers and magazines meant that tales of the bizarre and the outrageous could circulate widely and quickly, while the rapid increase...
Sonny Chiba, Martial Arts Master And Star Of Tarantino Movies, Dies Of Covid At...
"With an acting career that began in the 1960s with a string of roles in Japanese martial arts films and TV shows and went...
Hung Liu, Artist Who Blended China And The West, 73
"'Five-thousand-year-old culture on my back; late-twentieth-century world in my face' is how Ms. Liu described her life-changing arrival in the United States from China...
The National Gallery Cancels Its Postponed Italian Baroque Exhibition
The coronavirus strikes the show in DC again, for the second time in 18 months. "Museum officials pointed to international travel restrictions, the safety...
Satellite Imagery Reveals Azerbaijan’s Destruction Of Armenian Sites
It's not good: "A surge in construction by Azerbaijan, especially of roads, has led to either partial or full destruction of several cemeteries and...
A 50-Year-Old Art Heist May Soon Be Solved
Artist Leon Kossoff died two years ago, still hoping he'd see the 14 paintings and six drawings stolen in 1972. The truck that left...
A Film Crew Recreated A Shtetl In Ukraine
And now the media-created shtetl, possibly the most realistic one now in existence in the country, may become a sort of shtetl museum. -...
What Little Optimism Might Have Been Left For NY’s Big Concert Got Washed Away...
"The Homecoming Concert felt like a stolen glimpse of that alternate reality : live music again, finally; exuberant crowds with few masks in sight....
The Clickbaitification Of Netflix
It may destroy the streaming giant. - Slate
Kaari Upson, Artist Of Disquiet And Desire, 51
Upson, "one of the most significant artists to emerge from the vibrant Los Angeles art scene this century, won early attention for The Larry...
The Popularity Of Immersive Art Rooms
We all need to escape sometimes, but what does that mean about the art? - Hyperallergic
Western Cultural Institutions Must Support Afghan Artists
"The threats of violence are such that most of the Afghan artists and cultural workers I contacted while reporting this story — both in...
Update On Australia’s Dancing Zookeeper
The update is a little rough: Both of the musical theatre-trained keeper's jobs depend on tourism, and Melbourne has very, very few tourists these...
Jill Murphy, Author Of The Worst Witch Books, Has Died At 72
Murphy, who dreamt up The Worst Witch series at age 18 (the first book was published when she was 24), refused to sell the...
A Tiny Maori Designed New Zealand Airport Is Up For A Big Prize
The UNESCO Prix Versailles "recognises architecture that fosters a better interaction between economy and culture." The airport in the town of New Plymouth is...
The Anti-Vax Choral Director Of The San Francisco Symphony Has Resigned
He didn't want to comply with the vaccine mandates of the symphony or the City of San Francisco. Singers say they're sad to see...
James W. Loewen, Author Of Lies My Teacher Told Me, Has Died At 79
Loewen had no patience for the commonly used anti-Black model of the history of the South in the U.S., and his books made it...
