Last week, a review by the Post's Peter Marks of Bruce Norris's Downstate carried an eye-catching headline: "Downstate is a play about pedophiles. It's also brilliant." Alas, that soon caught the eyes of the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz: "So now the corporate media is praising pedophilia." - Playbill
The once-a-decade list of the top 100 films from Sight and Sound magazine has nudged 2012's champion, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, down to runner-up status and crowned Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. (Citizen Kane, which topped the list for decades, is now third.) - The Hollywood Reporter
"The cuts, CEO John Lansing says, are due to a sharp drop in sponsor revenue and represent approximately 3% of NPR's current annual budget." No layoffs are planned. - Inside Radio
The Pulitzer Prize winner, who has been at the newspaper for 25 years and was one of only two full-time dance critics in the U.S., was sacked as part of a set of layoffs and other cost-cutting measures at the newspaper. - MSN (The Washington Post)
I’m old enough to remember writing by hand when it was the only choice. Then I fell to the seductions of these newfangled things called laptops. I was delighted by the convenience. But I switched back to longhand several years ago, and now it’s the only way I write my drafts. - The Millions
During the election campaign Giorgia Meloni, defined culture as a “cardinal strategic point”, noting that the country’s arts industry generates roughly €85bn annually. The party promised to wipe out a left-wing “cultural hegemony” within arts institutions, and cut museum ticket prices to attract visitors. - The Art Newspaper
Since Mamet’s 2008 essay in The Village Voice, “Why I Am No Longer a Brain-Dead Liberal,” he has been subject to a towering wave of enmity from the community to which he has devoted his life. - Tablet Magazine
The YBAs are now all middle-aged. Hirst is 57, Emin 59, the Chapmans 56 and 60 respectively, and the years have been kind to them. They are still figures who command attention and whose work has come-hither appeal to a certain type of collector. - The Critic
The broadcaster also said it would try to attract viewers from lower socio-economic groups by making sports documentaries and crime shows, after criticism from Ofcom that these audiences are more likely to watch commercial outlets such as ITV. - The Guardian
Boundaries between “traditional” culture and online culture have been breaking down. Television audiences have shrunk. Newspaper circulations are in terminal decline. Meanwhile, people have been hooked to Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and all manner of alternative platforms on the Internet. - The Critic
"Do the politicians and pundits who speak of geopolitics really know what they are talking about? Geopolitics is a classically ambiguous or nebulous term, with an innocent and a dangerous use." - Aeon
Hakeem Jeffries co-sponsored the Music Modernization Act, the most important copyright law passed in decades, as well as the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2020, a.k.a. the CASE Act. - Billboard
For her 40th anniversary season, the 70-year-old dancemaker returned to Pandora's Cake Stain, which premiered in 1996. Pandora's New Cake Stain features 12 dancers (plus cameos by six members of the original cast) and a stage manager wearing roller skates and a cape. - The New York Times
He replaces Dorothy Kosinski, who led the Phillips since 2008, increased endowment from $18 million to $100 million, expanded art holdings from 2,000 to more than 6,000 objects, and made diversity and inclusion a major focus. - Washington Post
The Homosexual Condition, the BBC's first-ever documentary about the lives of gay males, was believed lost until the script and other documents were located in 2015. Here several people involved in creating the new stage adaptation, titled The First Homosexual, talk about the challenges of the project. - BBC
