The Motion Picture Assn. of America said Thursday in its newly released annual survey that worldwide box-office ticket sales rose slightly by 1% to $41.1 billion for 2018. – Los Angeles Times
Gigantor Devours The Movies: Disney Buys Fox And Extends Its Dominance
It is estimated that the merger gives Disney control of 40% of all theatrical box office and puts it in a position to take on the digital streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple. – The Guardian
Big Gods, Little Gods – Do Cultures Get The Gods They Need?
Anthropologists say small societies generally worship Gods who only need to be worshipped. Larger societies’ Gods have many more rules for how followers behave… – The Economist [registration]
How This Dancer With Cerebral Palsy Stays Performance-Ready
As a dancer with hemiplegia cerebral palsy, Jerron Herman has never been far from the physical therapy room — or an occupational therapist or some kind of medical interventionist. ‘I’m almost always in deep conversation with that kind of practitioner,’ says Herman, who performs with Heidi Latsky Dance. It’s part of keeping his body ready to dance — and to move throughout his daily life. Herman shared his routine with [Rachel Rizzuto].” – Dance Magazine
‘King Lear’ with Glenda Jackson and everything else that’s happening now
Great Shakespeare plays take the color of their surroundings – if the production is doing its job – and Broadway’ new King Lear is accomplishing that. But how could any alert, modern Lear production avoid the current parallels with lines such as “‘Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind” and “Get thee glass eyes and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see the things thou dost not.” – David Patrick Stearns
Gaillard With Parker, Gillespie, Marmarosa, et al
A Rifftides reader recently confessed to never having heard Slim Gaillard’s “Poppity Pop,”a 1945 recording with Charlie Parker as a sideman. The record might be dismissed as a period piece, a novelty, if it did not also include a ineup of mid-1940s Los Angeles all-stars. – Doug Ramsey
Seattle Opera Gets A New General Director
Christina Scheppelmann, who’s currently the artistic head of one of the top opera houses in Europe, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain, will become general director of Seattle Opera in August, succeeding Aidan Lang, who announced last fall that he would be leaving at the end of this season to become general director of the Welsh National Opera. – Seattle Times
It’s Official: André Aciman’s Sequel To ‘Call Me By Your Name’ Will Hit Shelves This Fall
Says a statement from Farrar, Straus and Giroux, “In Find Me, Aciman shows us Elio’s father Samuel, now divorced, on a trip from Florence to Rome to visit Elio, who has become a gifted classical pianist. A chance encounter on the train leads to a relationship that changes Sami’s life definitively. Elio soon moves to Paris where he too has a consequential affair, while Oliver, now a professor in northern New England with sons who are nearly grown, suddenly finds himself contemplating a return visit to Europe.” – Vulture
Egyptian Military Sues One Of Country’s Most Popular Novelists For Insulting President
Alaa Al-Aswany (The Yacoubian Building) is accused in the suit of “insulting the president, the Armed Forces, and judicial institutions” in a set of articles he wrote for the Arabic service of Deutsche Welle, Germany’s equivalent of the BBC World Service. Al-Aswany, who currently lives in New York, responded that the lawsuit is “a clear violation of article 65 of the Egyptian constitution, which states, ‘Freedom of thought and opinion is guaranteed.'” – Melville House
Arts’ And Artists’ Engagement With Communities Is Important, But There Are Problems They Cannot And Sould Not Solve
“Issues that produce social, economic, and moral deprivations cannot be ‘solved’ by arts, creative industries, or whatever we come to call them next. They should and can be solved with meaningful social and economic measures. The best arts and culture can do, in this respect, is to mask social-economic inequalities by having people from diverse backgrounds participate in local cultural life. If we accept that game, we are not alleviating troubles, but relieving responsibilities.” – HowlRound
Wole Soyinka Tells Henry Louis Gates What’s What
The Nobel laureate talks about politics, law, race/ethnic relations, and corruption in both his erstwhile adopted country (the U.S.) and his native land (Nigeria); about what went wrong in South Africa and which sub-Saharan countries are doing well; and about the time he personally desegregated a hotel pool in Atlanta. – New York Review of Books