Nate Chinen: “A disaster of this magnitude turns every critic into an advocate. For many of us, of course, that function was already part of the equation. But as I look back on our distorted timeline, I’m struck by how great a percentage of my energy was devoted to crisis response: detailing the collapse of an infrastructure; sounding the call for public support; spreading the word about everything from a relief fund to a Bandcamp Friday release. Everything felt pressurized by a desperate sense of purpose. I blame this feeling for the fact that it was much more difficult than usual to produce a ballot for the critics’ polls; what do rankings really matter when the world is falling down?” – NPR
Philip J. Smith, Chairman Of Shubert Organization, Dead Of COVID At 89
“A low-key businessman who started as a movie usher, [he] presided for more than a decade over the nation’s oldest and largest theatrical company, an archipelago of 17 Broadway theaters, many of them historic landmarks; six Off Broadway stages; and other properties, including a theater in Philadelphia.” – The New York Times
UK Arts Venues Sigh With Relief As Supreme Court Rules Insurers Must Pay COVID Claims
“The case has been rumbling on for a while, triggered when a variety of insurance companies stated that their business interruption schemes did not cover eventualities such as the COVID pandemic. A legal battle has raged over the ensuing months … arguing that this was a deliberate misreading of rules.” – WhatsOnStage (London)
The Quiet Tragedy Of The Man Who Oversaw New York’s New Train Station
It is impossible to know what drives a person to suicide. But in his final months, his mental state took a turn for the worse as pressure grew to finish the project and stress mounted over costs, according to dozens of interviews with friends, family and colleagues. – The New York Times
Researcher Sets Out To Disprove “Music Makes You Smarter” Idea. But…
“My intention was to show that the relationships are probably spurious, meaning that background influences are the main drivers of the relationships, and once those outside influences, like demographics, etc., are controlled for, the relationship essentially disappears. But hang on. Much to my surprise, not only did they not disappear, but the relationships are really strong.” – ABC (Australia)
Trump Wanted To End Arts Funding. Instead It Grew
“The years and years of work that we had done to create a pro-arts Congress, whether Republican or Democrat, really came through,” said Nina Ozlu Tunceli, executive director of the Americans for the Arts Action Fund. “Congress became a firewall to prevent that termination from happening.” – The New York Times
What New York Could Do To Help The Arts
“So what can the city and/or state do? From grants and loans to small theaters to negotiating with and supporting landlords with non-profit tenants to programs that keep paid staff in their jobs, rather than sending them onto unemployment, to initiatives that care for freelancers and independent contractors who make up so much of our cultural ecosystem, there is no shortage of policy possibilities.” – Gotham Gazette
A Bold Proposal For Galleries
Cancel them. No reform. Abolition. “Why are horror stories of racism, sexism, and abuse in art galleries open secrets that remain unaddressed? The dominant agents of the commercial art world — galleries, auction houses, PR firms, and dealers — hold an obscene amount of power over images and their narratives. … Employers are beholden to profit, and artists turn a blind eye. Employees fear retribution and lack lines of communication to critique their superiors. Art publications hesitate to speak ill of those supporting their ad revenue stream.” – Hyperallergic
Oh, Netflix, Why Couldn’t You Make A Better Ballet Show?
The plot has issues. The characters have issues. The filming of dance itself has issues. “Then there are the voice-overs, each more overwrought than the next. ‘There’s a wicked paradox in ballet,’ one intones. ‘Great flexibility is expected to blossom in a rigid world. The brutal rules and endless isolation, the messing of your mind, it somehow contorts your natural tendency to stretch into a perverse expression of a miracle.'” – The New York Times
We Have So Many Conspiracy Theories Because They’re Stories, And Stories Are How We Live
This is not great. “We are condemned to navigate the Space Age world with Stone Age minds; because of this inherent biological anachronism, man is the ape that imitates, tells stories, and morally condemns others.” – LitHub
Canada Gets A 24/7 Inuit-Language TV Channel
The new network’s executive director sounds hopeful. “As our elders pass away, we are fighting against time to keep Inuit culture and language alive for our children and grandchildren. TV in Inuktut all day every day is a powerful way to keep a living language for future generations.” – CBC
Motion Picture Academy Changes, And Expands, The International Shortlist
The Academy concluded that there was no way to keep the larger executive committee’s deliberation process secure on Zoom or other platforms – so the “preliminary committee,” a smaller group, is now the only arbiter of what movies will be nominated for Best International Feature. Unrelated (or so they claim), the shortlist has expanded from 10 to 15. – The Hollywood Reporter
The Essential Octavia Butler
Of course, if you’ve already read Parable of the Sower, much of the last four years might have felt a little too eerily familiar. But moving on: “Butler was an observer and ponderer. The probing mind that animates her novels, short stories and essays is obsessed with the viability of the human enterprise. Will we survive our worst habits? Will we change? Do we want to?” (And, also, probably you should start with Kindred.) – The New York Times
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Is Getting Some Covid Relief Funds
Along with other arts groups in the city, the BSO is seeing some funding for its workers. The BSO’s CEO “said the money will help the organization make up for revenue lost from having to close its physical doors. He added that it will help BSO pay staff and musicians, while supporting the community through its music”. – Baltimore Sun
Why Do Some Mock Romance So Very Hard When It Sells Better Than Hotcakes Ever Will?
In the UK, for instance, publishing company Mills & Boon (the company that just landed Fergie as an author) publishes 700 books a year and sells one book every 10 seconds or so (and that’s only 16 percent of the romances sold per year in the UK). Author “Annie O’Neil, the writer of 25 Mills & Boon books, said people will say to her face that the books are easy to write, that she follows a formula. ‘I say to them, ‘Have you ever fallen in love? It must be exactly the same way my husband and I fell in love’ and then they go, ‘Oh … I see what you’re saying.’'” – The Guardian (UK)
Hollywood, Like Many Americans, Has Been Looking For Villains In All The Wrong Places
And casting villains, that is to say law enforcement and others deeply committed to white supremacy, as heroes. But the new documentary MLK/FBI isn’t confused: it “weaves a deeply troubling portrait of King being hounded and harassed by the FBI, while the murders of his fellow activists went strangely unsolved.” – Washington Post
Artist Kim Tschang-Yuel, 91, Painter Of Water – And The Trauma Of War
“Kim’s drops can seem to sit miraculously atop his raw canvases or be in the midst of gliding down them, leaving a trail of moisture. They glimmer with light and cast shadows, and while vividly present, they are always on the verge of evanescing.” – The New York Times
A Black Dance Company In Los Angeles Gets Serious Funding
Black arts groups are “historically passed over for foundation funding of this magnitude,” but the Lula Washington Dance Theatre won over its grantors. The history of Black arts groups needing funding to get more funding is long and depressing – but things may be changing. – Los Angeles Times
The Inaugural Poet, 22 Years Old, Is Probably The Youngest In US History
Amanda Gorman will read a poem called “The Hill We Climb” at the inaugural ceremony on Wednesday (assuming it goes according to plan). “Unlike most 22-year-olds, Gorman has experience in inaugural poetry, having written one for the inauguration of Harvard’s president Larry Bacow.” – LitHub
The Biggest Mystery Of Bridgerton Is About That News Pamphlet
What’s Lady Whistledown’s business model? Seriously: To produce and print enough scandal sheets to feed the appetite of the ton, surely Lady Whistledown owns a printing press or something. And how does she pay her workers? Also, let’s talk about that typeface. – Slate
The Musical Fantasy World Created By Teens That Has Spawned Three Concept Albums For Broadway Shows
Yes, it’s partly because of TikTok and the world of duets, collaborations, and free-flowing (but in this case, very directed) creativity. But it’s so much more: “Averno [is] the setting of a sprawling, cross-platform universe over TikTok (125,000 followers), Instagram (47,000 followers), Spotify (1.4 million streams), YouTube, Twitter and Tumblr. It encompasses podcasts, livestreams, novels and short stories, TV and film scripts, an extensive alternate-reality game and, yes, musicals — all at different stages of completion.” – The New York Times
Hey America, Our To-Do Lists Will Never Get Shorter
Well, not in the foreseeable future, anyway, unless we can accept some “okayist” awards instead of trying to be number one all of the damn time. “Two developments that are making a substantial group of Americans busier, Sayer explained, are that a larger share of the country now takes on the combined ‘social roles’ of worker, spouse, and parent, and that the expectations of each have risen. Increases in busyness, she told me, are a matter of ‘both feeling like there’s more [to do and] feeling that you have to ‘be the best you can be’ in all of the roles, or you’ve failed as a person.'” – The Atlantic
Coventry Rebuilt Itself After WWII, But Now Town Planners Want To Knock Those Buildings Down
Coventry is the UK 2021 city of culture. But … yikes. “Much of the city’s pioneering postwar urban fabric is under threat. A gargantuan planning application has been submitted to demolish half of the town centre and replace it with a shopping mall with flats on top, in what has been condemned as a violent assault on the city’s modernist heritage, just when it should be being celebrated.” – The Guardian (UK)
Can TV Writers Help Curb The Pandemic?
TV writers have helped changed public opinion on drunk driving, cigarette smoking, and – in the opposite direction – marriage equality. Why not mask-wearing, social distancing, and getting vaccinated? – Los Angeles Times