How? With weddings, quinceñeras, and life's joyful moments generally canceled, mariachi bands' calendars have filled with funerals for friends, family members, and even fellow band members. "As the caskets go into the ground, many mariachi bands in California, Texas, Illinois and elsewhere have turned to playing songs of pain and sorrow to ease the passing. Even for the bands...
That is, for most of them, because Google Translate (and Bing) relies on written translations - which works well for French, Spanish, English, German, and other often-translated languages. "No such data mountain exists, however, for languages that may be widely spoken but not as prolifically translated" - languages such as Wolof, Luganda, Twi and Ewe, not to mention many...
Some of the fashion world is really not happy with the guidelines for the in-person Oscars. One fashion writer, echoing many stylists who enjoyed their freedom: "Honestly, all it’s done is make me wish that all the invitees would show up en masse in flannel nightgowns and Ugg slippers, just to thumb their noses at it." - The Guardian...
The actor and poet, also a playwright, had his most visible recurring role on the HBO series Oz. He once told an Indianapolis paper, "The problem with poetry is, a lot of the audience sometimes has a short attention span. ... So poetry has to have rhythm to capture people who can’t listen for so long. They’ll just close...
Truly. Well, except for the occasional disappearance, murder, and the like. But in pandemic times, we might feel like we understand them. "All they had was each other and the sea. Rooms piled one on top of the other, a couple of strides across and that’s it, no way out, nowhere else to go." - The Guardian (UK)
And, they say, it's past time for a change. Netflix has been particularly good at offering changing depictions this year, but the history of Asian women's depictions in Hollywood is far from fixed. Film scholar Celine Parreñas Shimizu: "The notion of a self-sacrificing, suicidal, servile, suffering, sexually available Asian woman is a prison from which we need to be...
The app is garnering millions of views, and some artists earn thousands (or more) for each short video they post. Some young artists are even "bypassing art schools and student loans, quitting their survival jobs and pursuing careers as full-time artists on TikTok. But the app’s insatiable demand for content is also bending their aesthetics in unexpected ways. What...
To be fair, not that many. But a few found real success while every other vehicle for their work was shut down. For instance, some of those "who pulled out such things as sewing machines and cookie cutters in an effort to make money over the last year were met with unexpected success. Hundreds of budding entrepreneurs started selling homemade...
Arrival times will be staggered, drinks and snacks must be pre-ordered, and the audience can go to the bathroom when it needs to - but there will be absolutely no stopping a play once it begins. Shakespeare might feel a bit too real. Consider Romeo and Juliet. There will be no need "to deny the hell of that play,...
Black, who is also stepping down both as CEO and chair of his private equity firm the Apollo Group, was facing "mounting pressure from prominent artists and activists about his financial ties to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein." - The New York Times
The organization’s annual awards, which it typically gives out in the spring to works published the previous year, are unusual in that book critics, rather than authors or academics, select the winners. The awards are open to any book published in English in the United States. - The New York Times
The U.K.-based company also said it has secured binding commitments for $213 million in additional cash via a bond to boost its financial flexibility "in the event of continued disruption as a result of COVID-19." The funding and an expected $200 million U.S. CARES Act tax refund "will provide the group with a liquidity runway to year-end in the...
Opened 27 February and running through to the end of May, a new exhibition, Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America, challenges and seeks to dismiss the legacy of Philip Johnson, the modernist master who did so much to start and cultivate MoMA. Presented in a gallery dedicated to Johnson’s memory, the participants’ introductory manifesto obliterates an inscription in his...
The new director of Long Beach Opera talks about making more with less. "There are people who are really comfortable with being very elite and exclusive and get wrapped up in the cachet of it all — the red carpets and the evening wear. I don’t think that’s helping sustain the art form. It alienates younger generations who don’t...
Mars House—which is staged on Mars in the promotional video—was designed in May 2020 using what is called “Meditative Design” principles. Jeff Schroeder, guitarist for The Smashing Pumpkins, partnered with Krista Kim to provide a prog-rock-inspired and suitably space-y accompanying soundtrack. - The Architect's Newspaper
