They’re only going to air two of the five Best Song nominees. They’re going to present some of the technical awards (even Best Cinematography) during commercial breaks (although the Oscars are the only time those trades get to be in the public spotlight). They generally seem obsessed with making the telecast short. New York Times Carpetbagger columnist Kyle Buchanan argues that the producers should do the opposite and embrace the Oscars’ Oscarness. — The New York Times
Archives for January 2019
Violinist Tasmin Little To Retire From Performing
The popular instrumentalist will end her three-decade concert career in the summer of 2020, at which point she’ll be 55. In her announcement, she ran through her considerable list of accomplishments before concluding, “I’ve decided it’s time to find a little more space in my life for some of my many other interests!” — The Strad
Museum Of Black Civilizations In Dakar Is Major Advance In Movement To Repatriate African Art
“The museum hopes to represent all black civilizations, but the fact that it is based in Dakar is not mere coincidence. Art lives and breathes in Dakar. With its founding father and the brain-child behind this grand museum – Léopold Sédar Senghor – having been a poet, cultural theorist and leading pan-Africanist thinker, it makes sense that Dakar would be the home of this museum.” — Quartz
Meshulam Riklis, Not Just Mr. Pia Zadora, Dead At 95
He’s best known to the public as the mogul widely considered to have bought a Golden Globe award for his actress-singer wife (whom he met when she was 19 and he was 49). But before that, he was the original leveraged-buyout corporate raider and co-founded Carnival Cruise Lines. Later, he produced a women’s pro wrestling TV series and became one of Las Vegas’s top casino-hotel and entertainment moguls — until he went bankrupt and fled home to Israel. — The Hollywood Reporter
This City’s One Of The Two Or Three Biggest Movie-Production Cities In The World, And You Probably Haven’t Heard Of It
It’s Hyderabad, India’s fourth-largest city, sixth-largest metro, and the home of the world’s largest film studio, Ramoji Film City, the heart of the movie industry in Telugu, India’s third-most spoken language (after Hindi and Bengali). — The Guardian
Netflix Is Getting Into Theatre-On-Demand
The move may signal a wider expansion by the streaming giant into capturing theatre for the small screen, which experts say could see it capitalise on a demand for more accessible ways to watch live performance. – The Stage
Existentialism, Experience, And Our Implicit Biases
How do your own implicit biases shape the abilities you develop and the opportunities you pursue? What effects do they have on your own mental health? How can we be liberated from the constraints they quietly impose on us and from the distress they can cause us? – Aeon
Why Journalists Are Addicted To Twitter
“For many of us, the most difficult part of the job is ringing the doorbell of a bereaved family, or prying into the opinions of unwelcoming strangers. Twitter has created a seductive universe in which the reactions of a virtual community are served up in neatly quotable bits without need for uncomfortable personal interactions.” – Washington Post
75+ NYC Galleries Sued Because Their Websites Aren’t Accessible To Blind People
“Like the lawsuits targeting other businesses, the claims against galleries tend to identify websites that lack special code that would enable browsers to describe images for people with impaired vision. In order for screen-reading software to work, the information on a website must be capable of being rendered into text. The complaint also cites several other ‘barriers’ to site accessibility, including ‘lack of alternative text,’ an invisible code embedded beneath a graphic image or within a URL.” – Artnet
In France – A Golden Age For Comic Books
There are now more comic books published annually in France and Belgium than ever before. “It’s a kind of golden age. There has never been so much talent. There have never been so many interesting books published.” – The New York Times
The Current Journalism Crisis Didn’t Just Happen – It’s Been Decades In The Making
People want to blame the internet for the news industry’s troubles, but the seeds go back to the 1980s. To understand this moment and how to fix it, it means understanding three key forces creating this slow-motion disaster. – Slate
The Brief, Brilliant Filmmaking Career Of Ida Lupino
“In the 1940s she was known as an actress, usually playing good-hearted tough-as-nails dames … But in a brilliant short burst, from 1949 to 1953, she directed six of her seven feature films, co-writing and producing many of them. She was, of course, a woman director in a man’s world, but beyond that her films deserve to be rediscovered because they are so substantial, stylish and bold, … [taking] on social issues that were usually taboo.” — BBC
Funding Boom In Higher Ed Benefits The Liberal Arts
There’s a growing consensus across the donor community that the liberal arts can effectively complement the STEM model. Throw in traditional support for endowments and digitization projects, plus gifts earmarked for philosophy studies, and it becomes clear that the liberal arts funding space is more diverse and robust than one would initially suspect. – Inside Philanthropy
Staging The Stories Of The Murdered Women Of Juárez
Dramaturg Trevor Boffone takes an in-depth look at La Ruta, a new play about the epidemic of violence against the women of the Mexican border city, written by Isaac Gómez and recently premiered in Chicago by Steppenwolf. — HowlRound
British Museum Says It Will Be International Watchdog For Looted Antiquities
Using their expert knowledge of archaeology, a sophisticated new database, and plenty of detective work, the dedicated team at the British Museum is working closely with colleagues in Cairo and Khartoum to identify problematic objects and expose fictitious provenances. – Artnet
‘Paraconceptual’ Artist Susan Hiller Dead At 78
After earning a Ph.D. in anthropology and doing field research in Central America, she moved from the U.S. to London and began her art career in the 1960s. While grouped with the Conceptualists, she called herself a “paraconceptualist” because of her interest in paranormal phenomena, which she incorporated into her multimedia work. — The Art Newspaper
Public Libraries Are Increasingly Playing A Social Support Role
They’re becoming maker spaces, loaning tools and musical instruments, and playing support roles. “These two disciplines, librarians and social work, come together so beautifully—we can look at these issues from two different angles.” – NonProfit Quarterly
They’re Both Native Americans And Native New Yorkers, And For 50-Odd Years They’ve Been Performing Native Dance In The City
The Thunderbird American Indian Dancers were formed in downtown Brooklyn in 1963 by a group of mostly Mohawk neighbors who were the first generation in their families born off the reservation. Now the group preserves and performs indigenous dances from across North America. Reporter Siobhan Burke talks with the Thunderbirds’ director, 82-year-old Louis Mofsie. — The New York Times
Study: Song Lyrics Have Become Angrier, More Pessimistic and Unhappy
“The results show a clear trend towards a more negative tone,” write Kathleen Napier and Lior Shamir of Lawrence Technological University in Michigan. “Anger, disgust, sadness, and conscientiousness have increased significantly, while joy, confidence, and openness expressed in pop-song lyrics has declined.” – Pacific Standard
BBC’s Latest Dance Competition Show Has A Race Problem
Not that the producers or panelists are to blame: The Greatest Dancer features plenty of minority contestants. But it’s the studio audience that decides who proceeds to the next round, and it seems they just will not vote for Asian competitors, no matter how enthusiastic the panelists are. Same for black female contestants. — The Guardian
A Virtual-Reality ‘Hamlet’
The metro Boston-based Commonwealth Shakespeare Company has partnered with Google’s AR/VR Lens project to create Hamlet 360: Thy Father’s Spirit, in which the viewer watches the action from the notional point of view of the ghost of Hamlet’s father. — American Theatre
Wattpad, Popular Online Platform For Fan Fiction And Original Stories, Will Start Publishing Books
Using what it calls Story DNA Machine Learning software, the company will mine the hundreds of millions of fiction works submitted by its 70 million-member community for material it believes will be commercially viable. (And yes, the writers will be paid.) — The New York Times
Americans For The Arts Expands Programs For Cultural Equity And Diversity In Arts Leadership
This year the organization will extend its 25-year-old Diversity in Arts Leadership program beyond New York City to New Jersey and Iowa, launch an Arts & Cultural Equity Fellows program in the Great Lakes region, create an Arts & Culture Leaders of Color Network, and begin a 3-day retreat called the Leaders of Color Forum. — Americans for the Arts
At 60, Can Aprile Millo Make A Comeback To Opera Stardom?
In the 1980s and ’90s, she was one of the Metropolitan Opera’s reigning sopranos, considered a latter-day exemplar of Golden-Age Verdi singing. “Then, at what should have been the height of her career, things petered out, … [and] over the past decade, she has barely sung in public at all.” But now she’s aiming to return to the Met stage. “It’s not about voice; the voice has been functioning,” she says. “But when you go through a lack of confidence, you’re not going to want to be anywhere.” — The New York Times
Opera Star David Daniels Arrested On Sexual Assault Charges
The 52-year-old countertenor and his husband were taken into custody for extradition to Texas, where a singer alleges that the couple drugged and raped him while Daniels was performing at Houston Grand Opera in 2010. — MLive (Michigan)