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The Problem With Anti-Racist Self-Help Books For White People

Be careful what you wish for. To anyone who has been conscious of race for a lifetime, these books can’t help feeling less brave than curiously backward. - The Atlantic

Artists Aren’t Just Born, They’re Made

If you want to make digital art, you need to learn to code. A training in film will help with moving-image art. So much is obvious. But today we’re in thrall to a vacuous Romanticism that insists artists are born not made. - The Guardian

Why Such Disdain For Theatre That Is Commercial?

The antipathy for the commercial sector of the theater, especially from the inside and often fueled by envy or elitism, is far from new. - Chicago Tribune

Instagram Pivots To Video, Leaving Photographers And Other Artists Out Of Sorts

Back in the day, "when it launched in 2010, Instagram courted the artistic community, inviting respected designers to be among its initial users and naming its very first filter X-Pro II, after an analogue photo-developing technique." Then Facebook bought it. - The Observer (UK)

The Painful Cost Of The Writing Life

The financial cost, the personal cost, the emotional costs ... who chooses this? - LitHub

Voters Picked Mulholland Drive As The Best Art-House Movie Of Twenty Years Ago

Better than Monsoon Wedding? Better than Sexy Beast? Better than Amèlie?! Well: "The film remains [David Lynch's magnum opus, a perfect distillation of his most lasting fascinations." - The Atlantic

Like Many Others, This Small Theatre Company Would Just Like The Old Normal Back, Please

At the Broadway Rose Theatre in Tigard, Oregon, the founder and managing director is so very done with the pandemic. "We’re a live theater company. I don’t want to do any more streaming. I want live people experiencing a live performance that will different the next night and the night after that." - Oregon ArtsWatch

Nach Waxman, Who Founded Manhattan’s Bookstore Of Culinary Knowledge, 84

Waxman founded Kitchen Arts & Letters in a former butcher shop in 1983, and for decades, he provided what he called "professional tools" for chefs, food writers, food and wine historians, and thousands of other culinary workers. - The New York Times

What’s Up With The Not-Quite-There Dream Ballet In The Musical Spoof Schmigadoon?

Though they become a joke in the fifth episode of the show, dream ballets used to signal deeper emotions in musicals - but now they're seen as slow-moving narrative stumbling blocks. - Entertainment Weekly

Medieval Literature Scholars, Movie Critics, And Fans Of King Arthur Walk Into A Bar

And they all disagree about the most recent adaptation of the anonymously written poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - the movie starring Dev Patel. - Los Angeles Times

We Need To Talk About The Ethics Of Digital Resurrection

The latest in questionable use of an artist's likeness or image, and/or voice, after death: "A hologram of Whitney Houston will perform a six-month Las Vegas residency beginning in October 2021." - CBC

Jacob Desvarieux, Musician Who Created Zouk Style, Dies Of Covid At 65

"Desvarieux and the founder of Kassav’, the bassist Pierre-Edouard Décimus, created a style called zouk by fusing Afro-Caribbean traditions of the French Antilles with sleek electronic dance music." Even French president Emmanuel Macron paid the musician tribute after his death. - The New York Times

There’s No Joy For An Actor In Playing A Perfect Character

That is, the character might be perfect for the actor - perfectly broken. - The Observer (UK)

A Brief History Of Art At The Olympics

Leni Riefenstahl, Andy Warhol, the Black Power salute, and this year's floating heads - there's a long history of, and often a large budget for, art at the Olympics, whether an audience cares or not. - FastCompany

Jane Withers, Child Star Of Depression-Era Hollywood, 95

Withers was "an antidote to the cloying sweetness of Shirley Temple," and later became moderately famous as Josephine the Plumber in Comet ads. - Washington Post

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