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New Online Dictionary Tracks History Of Science Fiction Vocabulary

"The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction includes some 1,800 separate entries, from actifan and aerocar to zero-gravity and zine. … A historical dictionary devoted to the history of something as future-oriented (and imaginary) as science fiction may seem like a contradiction in terms. But then science fiction has always had a curious relationship to the real world, said Jesse...

COVID And Theatre: How Half A Dozen Different Countries Are Coping

Here are reports from Taiwan ("Shows go on – with precautions in place"), Italy ("A sharply divided theatre world"), the U.S. ("Struggling on despite lack of leadership"), Sweden and Denmark ("Back to lockdown"), and Greenland ("Cut off from the outside world"). - The Stage

Museums Around Europe Face Yet More Weeks Of Lockdown

Except in the countries where they aren't: the Uffizi in Florence welcomed all of 800 visitors when it reopened last week, and Belgium declared museums essential and let them keep operating. But the lockdown stretches on in Britain and Germany, and museum workers get more and more worried; in France, museums had to close again after opening in the...

Actress Cloris Leachman, 94

" began her astonishingly prolific eight-decade career performing radio plays as a child in Iowa. She appeared in Shakespearean comedy and Eugene O'Neill melodrama on Broadway in the 1950s, was a television mainstay from the dawn of the medium" — not to mention her now-legendary big-screen performances in The Last Picture Show and Young Frankenstein — "and, at 82,...

Cannes Film Festival 2021 Isn’t Cancelled (Yet), But It Is Postponed

With ongoing uncertainty about the future course of the pandemic, Cannes organizers decided they had no choice but to change this year's dates from May 11-22 to July 6-17. "The move, while expected, will have a domino effect across the festival circuit." - The Hollywood Reporter

The Culture Wars Come To Slovenia

Perhaps it's better to say the culture wars have been brought to the tiny ex-Yugoslav republic in the Alps, courtesy of prime minister Janez Janša, now in a third term as prime minister. (His previous term ended in a 2013 corruption scandal.) Janša has been replacing museum directors, canceling government leases and contracts with arts organizations, and pushing a...

The Plight Of The Artist… As Expressed In A Cartoon

There is ample absurdity to wring from the fine-art ecosystem, where hierarchies and quid pro quos rule. Players ruthlessly engage in an unspoken competition for limited opportunities and resources—be they grants, residencies, publications, exhibitions, panel spots, teaching gigs, public commissions, or sales. And all of the above is adjudicated by gatekeepers who, like the gods of Olympus, deal fate...

Lessons For Us From China’s Cultural Revolution

Trump failed to purge all the old élites, largely because he was forced to depend on them, and the Proud Boys never came close to matching the ferocity and reach of the Red Guards. Nevertheless, Trump’s most devoted followers, whether assaulting his opponents or bombarding the headquarters in Washington, D.C., took their society to the brink of civil war...

A Need For Orchestras To Be More Nimble In Scheduling

Until the arrival of the coronavirus, the prevalent model was not particularly friendly to rapid response. Symphony orchestras did a good deal of planning two or three years in advance, although that was mostly big-picture stuff — there was still plenty of room for changes at the detail level. - San Francisco Chronicle

Longtime Folger Theatre Director Janet Griffin To Step Down

The announcement means the departure of one of Washington’s longest-serving theater chiefs and an opening in a company with a prestigious literary pedigree: It is an arm of one of the world’s great classical collections, the Folger Shakespeare Library. - Washington Post

Building Preservation Run Amok? LA Grapples With What To Save

If the owner is explicitly saying the business itself won’t survive, keeping the building around as a cultural monument raises additional questions about what culture, exactly, is being preserved. - Curbed

Highlights Of 125 Years Of The NYT Book Review

"In many ways, the Book Review’s history is that of American letters, and we’ll be using our 125th anniversary this year to celebrate and examine that history over the coming months. In essays, photo stories, timelines and other formats, we’ll highlight the books and authors that made it all possible." - The New York Times

‘It’s Muybridge on Steroids’: Herman Cornejo And A ‘Photo-Scientist’ Make A Totally Different Dance Video

In DANCELIVE by Herman Cornejo, shot by Steven Sebring using his specially developed in-the-round camera system, viewers can "watch from up close and see their movements from all sides and different angles, the visual equivalent of surround sound. … QR codes … will allow viewers to use their phones to interact with the online images, moving them forward...

New Access: Super High Resolution Images Of Raphael’s Sistine Chapel Drawings

The V&A partnered with the Factum Foundation to create the high-resolution color, infrared and 3-D scans in 2019. And last year, in honor of the 500th anniversary of Raphael’s death, the museum refurbished the cartoons’ gallery, known as the Raphael Court, by repainting the walls, replacing light fixtures and taking other steps to make the cartoons “more visible and...

The Pop-Up Newspaper Covering ‘The World’s Largest Protest’

For two months, many thousands of farmers have been staging a massive sit-in with their tractors on the highways around New Delhi, demanding that the Indian government withdraw a package of agriculture laws that the farmers say will slash their income and make them prey to Big Agribusiness. And some of these farmworkers, with sympathetic writers and artists, have...

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