Yearly Archives: 2023
“An Aesthetic Of Disobedience” — Oscar Wilde As Critic
As he wrote in "The Soul of Man Under Socialism," "Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue....
Why So Many People Feel They’re Stuck In BS Jobs
Simon Walo estimated that 19 per cent of people in the United States believe their jobs are ‘bullshit’ and, for the most part, working in one...
Influencer Boxing (Or, The Joys Of Watching Obnoxious Social Media Celebrities Punch Each Other’s...
"This is the world of internet-famous tough guys and celebrities clinging to relevance, of manufactured beefs and emotional arcs plotted via training videos and...
Portland Art Museum Got Rid Of Its Volunteer Docents. Was There A Problem?
Does reflecting the communities they serve mean reducing the role of senior white women, who made up a large proportion of the docent council?...
Shirley Jackson’s Horror Fiction As Grief Therapy
"A common trope in horror is that the character being haunted, possessed, or hunted is going through a personal agony — one that either...
A Never-Before-Published Interview With Gabriel García Márquez
"What would be great is to collect all the myths that exist about me, because maybe they’re more interesting than my life!" Q: "Could...
The Tiny Village Radio Station In India That’s Helping Fight The Patriarchy
"Meet 'Alfaz-e-Mewat,' a community radio station that offers a mix of group therapy, education, women’s empowerment and entertainment. … In this region — which...
U.S. Federal Trade Commission Proposes Requiring All Ticket Sellers To State Service Fees Up...
"The rule would not set a limit on the fees, but rather would require broader disclosures, including the purpose of the fees and whether...
A New Alabama Sculpture Park Aims To Tell The Story Of Slavery In The...
"When the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park opens in Montgomery, Ala., in early 2024, on a bluff flanked by railroad tracks overlooking the Alabama River,...
Princeton Art Museum Decides It Has A Rubens
"The work in question appears to be The Death of Adonis, an oil sketch on a wood panel depicting the hunter laid flat as...
Winnipeg Symphony Posts $1.3 Million Deficit, But Things Aren’t Desperate Yet, Says Board
A COVID stabilization reserve fund set up by the orchestra's board has covered that budget hole, but with government pandemic aid over and attendance...
Is The Internet Less Fun Now?
The social-media Web as we knew it, a place where we consumed the posts of our fellow-humans and posted in return, appears to be...
Has The Internet Been Abandoned To Bots?
Under your nose, the Internet of real people has gradually shifted into a digital world of shadow puppets. They look like people, they act...
Why Literary Fiction Might Be Dead
Literary fiction might be dead. More precisely, what might have died is literary fiction as a meaningful category in publishing and bookselling. - The Nation
Chicago Theatre Is In Dire Straits: Reacting To An Alarming Report
“An average audience-goer saw 40 or 50 shows or other cultural arts experiences over the course of a year, prior to 2020, going weekly...
Has Progress In Our Culture Come To A Standstill?
"Today culture remains capable of endless production, but it’s far less capable of change. Intellectual property has swallowed the cinema; the Hollywood studios that...
John Waters Is Organized And Disciplined. Yes, Really.
"He wakes up every day at 6 a.m., … checks his emails, and reads (several) newspapers before beginning his writing at 8 a.m. on...
Brexit Has Been A Disaster For UK Musicians
A recent study "found that 27.8% of musicians have had no work in Europe since Brexit. Nearly half of respondents had seen their work...
Standup Comedy Is In A Weird, Fragmented State. How Did It, And We, Get...
"On the one hand, there’s never been more of it — more specials, podcasts, comedy-generated discussions and debate and cultural flare-ups. … On the...
UK Labour Party Promises A Different Approach To Culture
“We need to protect the cultural spaces we already have. Everybody knows a pub theatre which is about to close down, or a local...
Bandcamp Has Been Sold Again, And Employees Were Locked Out Of The Site Without...
Epic Games (maker of Fortnite) purchased the streaming site for independent musicians 18 months ago. In late September, Epic announced the sale of Bandcamp...
The Iconic Sydney Opera House – 50 Years Later
On a windy spring day on 20 October 1973, Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the venue, drawing an estimated 1 million people to the city’s streets....
AO Scott Returns To The Movies. And Ponders The Wreckage Of Streaming
Just as streaming isolates and aggregates its users, so it dissolves movies into content. They don’t appear on the platforms so much as disappear...
UK’s National Lottery Will Spend $245 Million To Rehab Clusters Of Heritage Sites In...
"An oddly simple new £200m scheme will, for the first time," rather than funding only individual projects, "focus on clusters of heritage sites, including...
Chinese Porcelain Worth Millions Has Been Stolen From A Museum In Cologne
"The suspects ... broke into (the city's Museum of East Asian Art) on the night of September 12 and stole nine Chinese porcelain objects...
