“Proust composed by an immensely complex process of writing and rewriting, weaving together passages sometimes composed years apart, filling his margins with additions and, when the margins ran out, continuing on strips of paper glued to the pages.” Carol Clark writes about the challenges of editing and translating The Prisoner, one of three volumes the author didn’t live to see through publication himself. — Literary Hub
The New Spider-Man Movie Is An Indictment Of Live-Action Superheroes
Dear deities of entertainment, why in the world do we have awkward, clunky live-action movies strewn with CGI when animation exists? (Guess why. P r o f i t.) – BuzzFeed
The Day Mainstream Culture Died
Jared Marcel Pollen: No taste is triumphant anymore. This is to say that the mainstream is itself in peril as much as the domination of any narrative art within it. Indeed, the very notion of a mainstream seems to be perishing in overproduction and disaffection with the cultural gatekeepers. – 3AM Magazine
American Cultural Mythology: Authenticity Above All Else (Hollywood-Style Of Course)
Bohemian Rhapsody, picked apart by cultural commentators for its divergences from the real story of Queen’s rise, is great for its realness? A band that campily reimagined rock and roll as opera, that played with baby talk and disco beats, whose lead singer paraded about in royal finery, is the ensurer of authenticity? – The Atlantic
A New Phase In Art And Dance Made By Artists With Disabilities
This new wave “is a consideration of the aesthetic possibilities of disability. It’s not about adaptation or accommodation. It’s about how unique bodies, minds, senses and phenomenological experiences of disability and impairment—along with the political aspects and intersectional identities—can create new work.” – Vice
How Sound Can Tip Us To Things Like Climate Change
Scientist Garth Paine: “I have spent decades making field recordings in which I create a setup before dawn or dusk, then lie on the ground listening for several uninterrupted hours. These projects have taught me how the density of the air changes as the sun rises or sets, how animal behavior shifts as a result, and how all of these things are intricately linked.”
The Truth Behind The Genesis Of Monty Python’s ‘Spamalot’ (An Oral History)
It all started years before, when Eric Idle told Mel Brooks he wanted to do a musical version of The Producers. Brooks rejected the idea — then. When he changed his mind later and made gobs of money, Idle decided he could do the same thing. (Well, that’s how Idle tells it …) — Vulture
Mary Kay Stearns, One Of TV’s Very First Sitcom Stars, Dead At 93
Mary Kay and Johnny, starring Stearns and her husband (who wrote the scripts) as a couple not unlike themselves (prefiguring such series as I Love Lucy), told comic tales of a banker and his wife — and, once Mary Kay became pregnant, their child. — The New York Times
Cities Of War (An Urban Plan)
“Urbicide is the targeted destruction of cities as a tactic of war. The violence chronicled here is not aerial annihilation—hospitals and homes reduced to rubble—but the “gradual construction of buildings and infrastructure” in ways that collapse boundaries between war and peace, militarizing everyday life. – Public Books
The Essay As Art Form
The essay is a marginal, even trivial form, yet is also deeply and seriously engaged with the weightiest questions of how a philosophical and political subject can be constituted out of a particular body and mind. Essayistic writing—as opposed to strict autobiography, which may simplify and explain a life through narrative—shows what is at stake when we say “you”: another “I.” – Public Books
Music That Zigs While Others Are Zagging
One of the defining characteristics of today’s classical music is the ways in which it’s breaking the usual rules. Genre-less, as some call it. So you’re not shunned if you’re writing tunes when those around you stay atonal. Allan Kozinn listens and makes some recommendations. – San Francisco Classical Voice
What Your Access To Fitness Centers Says About Who You Are
America’s fitness-center availability tracks closely with key markers of socioeconomic class: income, education, and occupation. – CityLab
Memories Of One Of ‘The Old Gang’ At Judson Dance Theater
Aileen Passloff, now 87 and still working as a choreographer, talks to Gia Kourlas about the 1950s and ’60s, when a new generation was transforming what dance could be; her studies with a Diaghilev alumna; and climbing up a fire escape in heels and sneaking into City Center. — The New York Times
Art Dealer/Tax Fraudster Mary Boone Tries The Officer Krupke Defense
“New York art dealer Mary Boone pleaded guilty in September to filing false tax returns. Now, as she awaits sentencing — which could be up to six years in jail — her lawyers have filed a massive memo calling for leniency from the judge, citing a history of childhood trauma that has left Boone to battle mental illness and addiction.” (Gee, Officer Krupke …) — Artnet
New York’s Beloved Drama Book Shop Was About To Close , So Lin-Manuel Miranda Bought It
The store, known for its wide selection of play scripts and books on theater, had announced that it was going to close after one rent hike too many for its 84-year-old owner. So Miranda, who says he wrote much of In the Heights in the Drama Book Shop basement, got three of his Hamilton producing partners to join with him to buy the business. — NPR
When The DNA Test Challenges Your Cultural Identity
Dani Shapiro is a writer who spent years exploring her life and identity. Then she took a home DNA test and discovered what she thought she knew about her heritage was wrong… – Washington Post
What’s The Difference Between A Dialect And A Language?
Okay, so maybe you haven’t spent a lot of time pondering this. But Sam Dresser’s discussion here illuminates something in how we construct systems for communicating. Are the differences mainly in overlap of common words? – Aeon
The Future Of Publishing? This Should Depress You
Mieke Chew recalls a conversation she had with a Croatian publisher about the decrease in book criticism in the four years she has been doing publicity. “He was like, ‘Yeah, that happened in Croatia ages ago,’ and I said, ‘Well, what happened to all the critics?’ and he said, ‘They have blogs now, which barely fucking anyone reads.’ ” That leaves listicles and best-of roundups in place of a robust conversation around books, Chew says, and, as a result, she’s watched many of her colleagues in the industry run to any internet celebrity they could find to help get their books some attention. “Pandering to influencers is just, like—I’d rather fling myself off a cliff,” she says. – Publishers Weekly
Mission Commitment
No mission statement should be the template for another organization (that’s very nearly a truism for us in the nonprofit world), but being able to see commitment to engagement in the mission is a pre-requisite for effectiveness. Is it obvious in yours? — Doug Borwick
Smithsonian Pandemonium: Skorton Leaves, Museums Shuttered
It’s been a bad-news month for the Smithsonian: On Dec. 20, Secretary David Skorton — arguably the most successful, least embattled Smithsonian leader in recent memory — announced he’d be leaving his Smithsonian post in June. Just two days after this bombshell, the federal government shutdown began. — Lee Rosenbaum
Why The 87-Year-Old Founder Of Philadanco Dance Wants To Start A New School
Joan Myers Brown: “We started talking about how children are no longer interested in training. They see So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars and want to do ‘trick, trick, trick,’ rather than putting in the hours honing proper technique.“We wanted to change the system of teaching dance in their schools.” – Philadelphia Inquirer
Increasing Number Of Fakes Of African-American Art
“It’s a whole generation: you could go from A to Z through the list, from Charles Alston to Charles White. I am seeing fakes attributed to all of them,” Rosenfeld says. Propelling the fakes market is the fact that many of these artists were overlooked or undervalued in their lifetimes, so scholarship and expertise in their work is limited.” – The Art Newspaper
Dallas Morning News Lays Off 43, Including Most Of Its Arts Writers
The paper has struggled as a business for decades and has a terrible history of cutting its cultural coverage, repeatedly signalling its lack of investment in the life of the city. –DMagazine
NBC Says It Will Reduce Ads In Prime Time By 20 Percent
Why? Increasingly, viewers are resistant to ads cluttering programming. TV is competing for its life with streaming services and other entertainment options. And NBC is experimenting with something called “prime pods” – slots that the broadcaster believes are more effective. – Axios