Well, that's ... a good question. "We know how Amazon treats its workers, how it squeezes its sellers, how it devastates small businesses, and how it extorts money out of state and local governments (and let’s not even start talking about privacy). We know that our elected officials play along. We aren’t happy about it, yet we keep on...
Is the binge better? Or is it OK to let episodes marinate for a week before returning to a story? When Netflix first dropped entire seasons, it blew everyone's mind. But now, perhaps, the choices are simply "one more set of storytelling tools — like shooting in front of a studio audience, or not — creatively suited to different...
And other plays too. This isn't a "Shakespeare didn't write his own plays" theory; it's a theory about an Elizabethan playwright named Thomas North - and Thomas North's cousin George. - Boston Globe
This is not great. "The past year ... has laid bare just how perilous a job you like, or even love, can be when you’re working without the most basic of safety nets. This fragility is something that Strand employees have always known — they work in retail, after all. Before, though, the job had just enough perks, just...
Start with an "electrostatic disinfectant sprayer," add in a seat buffering system, and don't forget prepackaged condiments for your popcorn. (But ... what about air flow and vaccine requirements? Hm.) - Variety
Hugo Marchand's new memoir speaks of feelings that seem to beset nearly every dancer - of not belonging, of self-doubt, and of stage fright. And his newest pandemic project brought him into close contact with artist Anselm Kiefer. "I like the way loops and matches Kiefer’s work which uses recycled and repeating materials. We were lucky to meet...
Peel's star has been ascending, with work for TV and movies, and hosting a new, controversial BBC music show - and she managed, with the help of the cosmos, Barbara Hepworth, her grandfather's voice, and nature, to compose a new album during pandemic lockdowns and restrictions and a lot of Zoom meetings. - The Observer (UK)
Carus believed that children should read - and see - high-quality short stories, poetry, and art. In 1982, she said in an interview, "So many people talk down to children, but you have to respect their intelligence. ... Parents give them the best clothes, the best food, the best toys, when what they should be giving them is food...
Louis Grachos had a two-year stint, including a year of pandemic shutdown marred by controversy surrounding the museum's response to George Floyd's killing and by the deaccessioning and sale of a massive Helen Frankenthaler painting. Grachos is returning to New Mexico, where he'll be ED of "the contemporary arts organization SITE Sante Fe, which he led from 1996 to...
The state legislature voted to scrap the state's official song. Why? "The pro-Confederate Civil War-era tune features lyrics that denigrate Abraham Lincoln as a 'tyrant' and call on Maryland to join the South in fighting 'the Northern scum.' Penned in 1861 and set to the melody of 'O Tannenbaum,' it has been blasted by critics as racist and an embarrassment to...
The greatest imaginative challenge seems to be foreseeing which changes will arrive sooner than expected (computers outplaying chess grandmasters), and which will be surprisingly slow (flying cars). The tech-world saying is that people chronically overestimate what technology can do in a year, and underestimate what it can do in a decade and beyond. - The New York Times
The effort, dubbed the Hollywood Skyway, would have cost the studio an estimated $100 million. The tramway would have taken visitors on a six-minute ride more than 1 mile up the back of Mt. Lee to a new visitors center near the sign, with pathways to a viewing area. - Los Angeles Times
Across Canada, indie opera companies are making the art form cool again; daring and provocative again. Pre-pandemic, the collective mass of these companies was on the verge of something truly special: making opera mainstream, something to be wafted over a crowded pub, or poured out freely in church basements and makeshift venues coast to coast. - CBC
The debate has grown heated in recent weeks, pitting museum against museum, and forcing the association — which serves as the industry’s referee and moral watchdog — to postpone talks about extending the change indefinitely. - The New York Times
"In one camp, translators argue that the issue is representation in the field, not whether a white translator is incapable of translating an author of a different background. Another contingent believes the incident signals a threatening policing of who is eligible to translate, a step closer to a world where the validity of one’s experience and ideas is contingent...
