What separates Americans is not just income, but whole frames of reference: Cordoned off, the wealthy live in a world apart from the less-well-off, no longer sharing the same experiences. – The New Republic
Cheryl A. Wall, Expert On Zora Neale Hurston And Champion Of Literary Black Women, Has Died At 71
Wall, longtime professor at Rutgers, changed the world of literature. She “championed racial diversity both in the curriculum and the classroom. She encouraged more black students to major in English and pursue postgraduate degrees. And she widened the scope of literary scholarship to include black novelists, poets and nonfiction authors as well as essayists, whom she considered central to the black literary tradition.” – The New York Times
Betsy Wyeth — Muse, Model, And Manager For Husband Andrew — Dead At 98
“More than just the organizational and financial genius of the enterprise, Mrs. Wyeth also had a firm hand in guiding her husband’s artistic development. … Later she came up with the idea of turning an old grist mill in Chadds Ford into what would become the Brandywine River Museum of Art, which opened in 1971 and continues in part as a shrine to her husband and the artist family from which he sprang.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
Violinist/Violist Jan Talich, Founder Of Talich Quartet, Dead At 71
“With his fellow quartet members, he toured all over the world, specialising in works by Czech composers — many of them contemporary — and winning several prestigious prizes, including Diapason d’or awards for recordings of Mozart and Beethoven string quartets. He continued to play with the quartet until 2000. His nephew now occupies the leader’s seat.” – The Strad
Critic: Am I Mean? Yup. And I Don’t Care
Adrian Searle: “On the page, I am the mildest, most humane and dare I say sympathetic of writers, while the one who is doing the writing is an incoherent monster, if not an absolute swine. But it isn’t always like this. Life would be intolerable if it were. Often protesting that I am only as good as my material, give me an artist I admire and work that I can identify with and it can all be plain sailing.” – The Guardian
Surge In Library E-Book Borrowing
Loans of online e-books, e-magazines and audiobooks were up an average of 63% in March compared with last year. And 120,000 people joined libraries in the three weeks after lockdown began, Libraries Connected said. – BBC
Can We Learn From Movies About Interactions That Take Place In Different Places?
Movies depict phone calls, there are split screens, fast cuts, etc. There’s already a rich visual language of remote interaction. So what can we learn? – Irish Times
No Surprise: Netflix Reports Huge Increase In Subscribers
Netflix added 15.8 million subscribers, more than double the 7.2 million that were expected — a growth of more than 22 percent year over year. Netflix now has 182 million subscribers worldwide. The company also saw quarterly revenue of $5.77 billion versus the $5.76 billion estimated. – The Verge
Six Ways Our Cities Might Change After COVID
In the 20th century, tuberculosis, typhoid, polio and Spanish flu breakouts prompted urban planning, slum clearance, tenement reform, waste management and, on a larger level, Modernism itself, with its airy spaces, single-use zoning (separating residential and industrial areas, for instance), cleaner surfaces (think glass and steel) and emphasis on sterility. – Los Angeles Times
We Always Talk About Community. So Here’s Where Community Is
“How do we define community in a time of crisis, which is in many ways what community is for? We don’t need our neighbors as much when we are healthy and wealthy and can pay for all the assistance we require. When we need our neighbors most, and when community matters the most, is when we are hungry or sick, or when good Samaritans are our only hope.” – Plough
In Search Of Inigo Philbrick, Fugitive Art Dealer And Accused Ponzi Schemer
Journalist Oliver Franklin-Wallis looks into the young phenomenon’s background and meteoric rise, teases out how he got to the point of selling artworks to several different clients at once, tries to figure out where he’s disappeared to — and ultimately receives a series of bizarre (and badly written) Instagram DMs and, after press time, a nervous email from Philbrick himself. – British GQ
Is What We Believe Merely The Product Of The Luck Of Our Social Circumstances?
It’s important to realise that the concern about beliefs being socially influenced is worrisome only if we’re deliberating about whether to maintain belief from the perspective of doubt. – Aeon
Last Of The Lost Medieval European Pigments Rediscovered
Folium, an ink with hues ranging from blue to purple that was used extensively to illuminate manuscripts, was derived from the small fruits of an unassuming weed native to southern Portugal. But folium had fallen out of use, so the recipe had been lost, along with the exact identity of the plant. Researchers have now found both, and conservators will be able to use it when manuscripts need restoration. – Smithsonian Magazine
Why You’re Feeling Zoom Fatigue
As experts in human-computer interaction point out, using Zoom means putting on a show for others without being able to rely on the cues we primates depend on in physical encounters. – Axios
Even You And I Can Learn This Merce Cunningham Dance At Home
Seriously? But Merce is hard. “And yet, this is what Patricia Lent, the director of licensing at the Cunningham Trust, is proposing. In a new online series, she has been systematically breaking down Cunningham’s solo 50 Looks into digestible slices.” Marina Harss explains. – The New York Times
Pandemic Has Brought Netflix Record Number Of New Subscribers
Just a couple of months ago, there were articles suggesting that the streaming service may have tapped out its pool of potential customers. But, as with most things on Earth, everything changed in March, and Netflix ended up getting nearly 15.8 million new subscribers in the first quarter of 2020, a record. – Vulture
Four Out Of Five ‘Most Challenged’ Books At U.S. Libraries Are LGBTQ-Themed
“Attempts to remove books from libraries across the US rose almost a fifth last year, with children’s books featuring LGBTQ characters making up 80% of the most challenged books,” according to the annual report from the American Library Association. – The Guardian
Upright Citizens Brigade Is Closing All Of Its New York Space
The once-mighty, now-struggling comedy improv institution is giving up the leases to both its theater and its training center on Manhattan’s West Side. Nothing about the company’s Los Angeles location was said in the announcement, which stressed that “UCB is not leaving New York City. The school and the theater will continue on in a pared-down form, which will be very similar to how we operated when we first started in NYC over 20 years ago.” – Vulture
Venice Film Festival Is Still On For September, Say Organizers
“Roberto Cicutto, president of the Venice Biennale, which oversees the film festival, confirmed it would go ahead on 2 September as planned. Meanwhile, the Biennale’s theatre and dance festivals, which were due to take place in June, [have been] postponed.” – The Guardian
“Hamilton” Education Now Free Online
EduHam was born as an offshoot of “Hamilton” itself, and Lin Manuel Miranda says the project — in which 250,000 students nationwide have participated — has proved to be a hit as much with cast members as younger people. – Washington Post
The Met’s ‘Porgy and Bess’ in the cold light of morning
How often can you say that the Metropolitan Opera rocks? That happens in much of this new recording, taken from live performances of the Met’s hit production. But the price of capturing that live energy was surprisingly high. – David Patrick Stearns