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A Century Of The Widening Gyre
One hundred years after the last massive, worldwide pandemic, Yeats’ poem feels close at hand. “I would scarcely call ‘The Second Coming’ a holiday poem. But it makes you feel that that a page of history is about to flip: one epoch is about to give birth to another.” – NPR
In 2020, The Performing Arts Livestream Winter Holidays
Members of Live Arts Maryland might be practicing outdoors, as far apart as possible, with earmuffs and scarves on, but on the day of their performance, “individual performers in A Celebration of Christmas will sing carols from their homes and will be joined, online, by an orchestra ensemble in a YouTube livestream.” – Baltimore Sun
What Fairytale Of New York And It’s A Wonderful Life Have In Common
And what they tell us about a culture that celebrates Christmas above all, decontextualizing the artists’ other work. “The Pogues had already put out two of the most original albums of the decade by the time they released ‘Fairytale’ in 1987; I can’t remember the last time I heard anything from either played on the radio. Were Frank Capra around today, he would be able to relate.” – The Guardian (UK)
The UK’s Culture Secretary Asks Netflix To Label ‘The Crown’ As Fiction
Who would write this twist into the series? Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden “is expected to write Netflix a formal request that a label is added to the beginning of each episode, clearly stating that the series is fictionalized. Dowden’s demands echo worries that the series will do lasting damage to the image of the British monarchy.” Ahem. – Variety
Just Say No To Hillbilly Elegy
As nearly every reviewer has noted, the movie is bad – and the movie is bad because the book was bad. “The film and book need Appalachia to be poor, broken, and dirty, because they depend on us believing that the mountains are somewhere we want Vance to escape. They need to frame poverty as a moral failing of individuals—as opposed to systems—because they have to imply that something about Vance’s character allowed him to get away from his hillbilly roots. Hillbilly Elegy has to simplify the people and problems of Appalachia, because it has decided to tell the same old pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps narrative that so many of us reject.” – The Atlantic
After Nearly 13,000 Authors Protest, Amazon Adjusts Royalty-Snagging Audible Policy
Readers could return an audiobook if they’d bought it less than 365 days earlier, and the royalties from the audiobook would come out of the author’s next paycheck. What the heck? Some authors say it’s more like a library – but without any library royalty payments. Audible has changed the time limit to seven days. – The Guardian (UK)
Theatres Are Saving A Christmas Carol
Did … did it need saving? Well, perhaps the theatres do; it’s been such a large money maker for theatres in the U.S. for, well, many years. Now, as the holiday season kicks into high gear, theatres “are using every contagion-reduction strategy they have honed during the coronavirus pandemic: outdoor stagings, drive-in productions, street theater, streaming video, radio plays and even a do-it-yourself kit sent by mail.” – The New York Times
The Pandemic Is Fueling Gaming, Sure, But Also A Game Category Called Just Chatting
Only connect, perhaps? Yes, Animal Crossing and Among Us are still popular, but “Just Chatting, which features people talking on camera about food, technology and other topics.” (And then there’s All Bad Cards, like an online version of Cards Against Humanity.) – Los Angeles Times
Cuban Government Agrees To Dialogue And Tolerance For Artists
It’s unprecedented in modern times, as Cuba has been quick to quash artistic dissent – but many of the protestors, who were demonstrating following a Thursday night raid of another protest, were actors, musicians, and others who long held governmental approval. – Seattle Times (AP)
The Worst Kind Of Book Thief
Easily the worst is the kind that steals from a shared heritage in libraries for private sale or just adoration. “It denies everyone the opportunity of having access to that book. Even a rare book bought (or stolen) from a bookshop will end up having just one owner, whereas in a public library that same book is available for anyone who wishes to read it.” – The Guardian (UK)
Documentaries Are Hot Right Now, Threatening HBO’s Dominance
But the two women who run the documentary division at the behemoth aren’t worried. “Audiences’ appetite for nonfiction has grown as new funding sources like Kickstarter have emerged, and new formats, like podcasts. At the same time new and affordable technology has helped democratize the medium, and competition has exploded among deep-pocketed platforms hungry for documentary content.” And then there’s Netflix. – The New York Times
What’s Up With Romance Novel Architecture?
The men in romance novels – whether straight or gay – seem obsessed with open plans. Open plans, big TVs, big sofas. Blame Canada. (Seriously: Blame Canada for HGTV, which led directly to … this.) – Slate
Ask A Teen: Ballet’s A Visually Perfect Sport Art Form
Fair enough. The teen, and other dancers, keep their routines going during the pandemic, as well as they can. The high school senior: “I want to inspire people. I wish for people to be moved and left with a sense of pride and joy when they watch me. … That’s all I’ve ever dreamed of really, on the stage or in the street. I want people to look at me and feel inspired.” – Greenville (South Carolina) News
More Details Emerge About Why Mosaic Theatre Company Kicked Out Its Founding Artistic Director
Ari Roth was fired from Theatre J after 18 years as an AD, and so he quickly founded his own company – Mosaic. Recently, he resigned under pressure from Mosaic. Why? A liaison with Equity says he is living with an older definition of an AD as someone who can treat staff and others badly, as long as his vision is great: “His defense is that the role of the artistic director has changed. … But everything changes. Everything evolves. We just happen to be living in a time where this imaginary rule that an artistic director’s actions will be tolerated by the people below — that rule no longer exists.” – The New York Times
London’s Proposed Tulip Means Nothing About Cultural Capital, But A Lot About Ego
Rowan Atkinson is not happy with the proposed tower or its boosters’ claims that it will make London, exhausted from the battle with COVID-19, feel better. “Its outdated futurism resembles nothing more than the fantasies of a third-world dictator.” – The Guardian (UK)
Flor Silvestre, Mexican Singer, Actress And Musical Matriarch, 90
Silvestre married musical icon Antonio Aguilar after she was already a star, and the two had vital careers apart – “but transformed into a supernova when they worked together in 20 films and dozens of songs that get screened and streamed to this day. More important, Silvestre and Aguilar created a traveling rodeo that toured across the United States and Mexico for decades. Part musical revue, part horse show, part comedy act, and all about a wholesome night out for the family, their espectáculo played from small towns in the Midwest to six straight sold-out performances at Madison Square Garden.” – Los Angeles Times
The Musician Taking Wedding Gigs To Survive The Pandemic
Survive monetarily, that is. And psychologically. “There’s definitely a part of me that puts myself in these risky situations just to feel some sense of normalcy. My sister, a Ph.D. clinical psychologist, agrees. She says the damage this apocalyptic Groundhog Day is doing to performers’ psyche is as bad, if not worse, than the financial hardships we’re facing. After all, for many of us professional entertainers, our work is also intertwined with our social lives. It’s much more than just a paycheck.” – Slate
Hollywood Is Lost And Wandering, And Wondering How To Survive
Sure, Hollywood has been predicting its own demise since TV made it big. Every subsequent innovation – larger TVs! color TVs! The internet! DVD rentals! Streaming! – has the industry thinking it will die soon. But this time, well. “In the 110-year history of the American film industry, never has so much upheaval arrived so fast and on so many fronts, leaving many writers, directors, studio executives, agents and other movie workers disoriented and demoralized — wandering in ‘complete darkness,’ as one longtime female producer told me. These are melodramatic people by nature, but talk to enough of them and you will get the strong sense that their fear is real this time.” – The New York Times
American Museums Are, Finally, Going Through An Identity Crisis
Perhaps, as one museum director claims, we’re “at a moment for complete reimagination of museums,” but it’s a painful one with the pandemic shutdowns mixing with a long overdue racial reckoning. “Museums are caught in a disheartening dilemma: They’re facing growing calls for diversity, equity, and inclusion, but without the funding they need they’re more likely to close than to be able to meet those demands.” – The Atlantic
Paradoxically, You Can See More ‘Nutcracker’ Than Ever This Year
That is, if you’re willing to watch on-screen. Collected here are well over 30 options for watching The Nutcracker, or some version of it, this holiday season, from ballet companies across the United States. – Playbill
The True Value Of An Arts Degree
A recent graduate says of her art history, cultural analysis, and other classes, “Being able to take these topics seriously and giving them the same attention and weight as things such as 18th-century philosophy taught me so much more about our communities, what we value, what we enjoy and whom we pay attention to.” – Maclean’s (Canada)
Not Even A Pedophilia Scandal Can Crack France’s Legendarily Clubby Literary World
On the prize committees, those who should feel disgraced give a shrug. Why should they care? “François Busnel, the host of La Grande Librairie, France’s most important television literary program, compared prize juries to the southern Italian mafia. ‘It’s a camorra, particularly the Renaudot,’ he said in a recent interview.” – The New York Times
Slightly Correcting The Scales By Adding A Portrait Of One Woman To Britain’s Royal Society
Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered a new type of star – the pulsar – when she was in grad school. A Nobel Prize for its discovery went to her male PhD supervisor. Now her portrait is going into the Royal Society at its headquarters in London. “‘I’m sure that will upset a few fellows,’ she said, chuckling, when told by the Guardian of her position at the top of the grand staircase. ‘It is really prominent I must say, I’m surprised at that.'” – The Guardian (UK)
The Era Of The Blockbuster May Be Over, For Now Or Forever
Or perhaps that’s just in the U.S. and other countries that can’t seem to get the coronavirus under control. “Up until now, Hollywood has refused to show its biggest movies first to audiences in Asia, Australia and New Zealand – where many cinemas are open again – partly due to piracy fears … [but] Wonder Woman 1984 will have a full theatrical release in China a week before the film is released in the U.S.” – BBC
Hugh Grant Says He Never Wanted To Be A Romantic Hero
Not that he hated it. “I’m not ungrateful. I loved the money, of course, and I’m proud of a lot of those films. But if someone said to me, ‘Do you have any talent as an actor?’ I’d say, ‘Well, only in regard to character acting.'” – Los Angeles Times