Yearly Archives: 2021
The Trope Of “Hot” Women In Literature
A cursory review of Western literature and fiction suggests that the instinct to render fictional heroines “hot” has both a long history and one...
We Each Process Color Differently. Here’s How
Colour has a life beyond any individual perception. It exists as both the quality of a thing as well as an approach to that...
Outsider Fashionista Passes Torch To 20-Year-Old, Takes Life, And A New Museum Is Born
Professionally, Steven Klein created logos and slogans for hotels and restaurants. But he belonged to no agency. Instead, as an independent consultant, he was...
Your Social Status Versus Your Moral Status
Within the state and between the state and those it governs, personal relationships are much less significant than they used to be after a...
Woman Interrupts Guthrie Performance With Half Hour Racist Rant
Patrons attending A Christmas Carol were seated and ready for the 7:30 p.m. showtime when a woman began screaming in the crowd. According to social media...
Tommasini To Step Down As NYT Classical Music Critic
At year’s end, Tony will step down as The Times’s chief classical music critic. It is a position he has held since 2000, giving...
Putting The Fun Back Into Franz (Schubert)
And the puppets; don't forget the puppets. Instead of a quiet recital hall, "Schubert’s songs grew from entertaining evenings of spontaneous, alcohol-fuelled interaction, with...
What To Learn From Being The Target Of (Deeply) Hateful Attacks For What You...
Nikole Hannah-Jones on what she's learned: "Power doesn’t flash what it’s going to do. ... It doesn’t signal what it’s going to do. It...
When The Uffizi Almost Sued Pornhub
To be fair to Pornhub, the Birth of Venus is definitely a "classic nude." But the larger issue is about how museums make money...
Lee Maracle Propelled Herself And Other First Nations Writers Into Canadian Consciousness
Maracle died at 71, after having "chronicled the effect of Canadian settlement on the land’s Indigenous people and the persistence of discrimination, only to...
Reviving A Dying Record Label In The Era Of Streaming
Claddagh Records, founded in the '50s to preserve Irish musical heritage, fell on hard times in the 2000s. But now a deal with Universal...
Novelists Could Take A Cue Or Two From Poets
Or so says a novelist who took a poetry class that helped her move forward after a stale period of writer's block. - LitHub
England’s Artistic Culture Stretches Beyond London
You might think that's obvious, but it's not necessarily so to those in the capital city. Even during COVID, "London draws all the oxygen,...
How To Stay Focused When The World Turns A Spotlight On You
National Book Award finalist and MacArthur "genius" grant winner Hanif Abdurraqib keeps to himself most of the time, far from the madding crowds. "I’m...
Why People Still Collect, And Enjoy, DVDs
One librarian explains, "There's an interesting sort of equity piece to DVDs. ... They're popular with people who can't necessarily afford the paid subscription...
So Sorry That We Missed National Cliche Day
Oh: "Cliché comes from the printing process when a metal plate was used to physically transfer ink to paper. The term echoes the imitative sound...
Younger Media Viewers Love Subtitles
There's the popularity of K-dramas, for one, but also, "originally intended to help those with hearing problems, subtitles have become an essential aid for...
The (Re)Rise Of The Movie Musical
Charles McNulty: "A musical must establish its own aesthetic logic without apology to rational etiquette. We may think we’re living in a purely realistic...
The Wild Side Of Poussin
It's likely you find the French artist a bit, well, staid. Boring, even. But: "Quite a bit of wildness hides beneath the cloak of...
Donors Withhold Gifts To Protest Changes At Hamptons Sculpture Garden
A longtime director fired, a bequest altered, plans for the sculpture garden to become a museum - there's a lot going on at LongHouse...
Thousands Of Venezuelan Musicians Gather In Attempt To Win Guinness Book Of World Records’...
"The musicians, all connected to the country’s network of youth orchestras, performed a roughly 10-minute Tchaikovsky piece outdoors under the watchful eyes of independent...
Europe’s Best Cathedrals
While some on this list are obvious, others may inspire an artistic pilgrimage - though Milan "is a chaotic hotchpotch of buttresses, pinnacles and...
Happy Birthday, Fanny (Mendelssohn) Hensel
From Google Doodle. Hensel "composed more than 450 pieces of music, most of which show a deep reverence for Johann Sebastian Bach. But she...
Bettina Grossman, Artist And Artistic ‘Feature’ At The Chelsea Hotel, 94
Grossman "was unusual even by the standards of the Chelsea, the storied haven for quirky artists." Her apartment "had become so crowded with her...
Republicans Have Escalated From Banning To Wanting To Burn Books
The targeted books are often by Black authors or other authors of color, and/or have queer content. Of course, the wannabe burners are calling...