Though "Asian fantasy" has been exploding in popularity as a sub-genre of science fiction and fantasy, not all authors think that's a good categorization. R.F. Kuang, of the tremendous The Poppy War trilogy, says the name "doesn't really make a lot of sense, either as a literary category or as an identity category. Obviously, there are a lot of...
The government appears to be meddling in free speech on university campuses - and now in national museum decisions. "This came to a head recently when it refused to reappoint Aminul Hoque, a distinguished academic at Goldsmiths, who had been on the board of the Royal Museums Greenwich since 2016. Because his work focused on issues of decolonisation, the...
It seems good at first, right? Adding dimension to villains! "In theory, this is a positive shift, Disney’s attempt to offer its young audience lessons that aren’t so dependent on innate goodness, or telegraphing that goodness with physical attributes. But as this novelty has jelled into a house style, the unofficial ban on old-fashioned evil starts to feel a...
Perhaps not a shocker, but in a 300-gallery survey, results painted "a portrait of an industry beset with income inequality." Assistants' top pay was about $35,000 a year, or $17 an hour - not a living wage in New York State. And that also means no overtime, no health benefits, no maternity leave, nothing that one might think galleries...
Elvin, a Russian dancer who also performed with the Bolshoi, "gave London audiences one of the first tastes of Russian style. ... Elvin created roles in Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella (Summer Fairy, 1948), Daphnis and Chloe (Lykanion, 1951), Homage to the Queen (1953), and Birthday Offering (1956), as well as Roland Petit’s Ballabile (1950)." - Gramilano
"A team of researchers studying brain activity of singing male and female plain-tailed wrens has discovered that the species synchronizes their frenetically paced duets, surprisingly, by inhibiting the song-making regions of their partner's brain as they exchange phrases." - Phys.org
The prison was closed to the public in 2013 on "health and safety grounds," but actors including Kate Winslet, local politicians, and more want to preserve the area, and turn the prison into a museum. Will Reading let them? - The New York Times
"As new ways of making money from The Sound of Music and the rest presented themselves, the job of advising the heirs and maintaining their income became much bigger. It was no longer simply a matter of giving (or withholding) approval for major new productions but also a strategic puzzle: How do you uphold an artistic legacy while exploiting...
For Leeds 2023, the festival's creative director says they'll try to "let culture loose" to reach everyone in the city during their year. Lyn Gardner agrees it's time for a change: "Food and sport and ballroom dancing are as much part of culture as the latest Tom Stoppard play. ... Both have a value, bring people together and provide...
Peter Bradshaw, considering the news that Kevin Spacey is acting again (albeit in a small European film): "Could this be Hollywood's hot new thing – uncancel culture? The phenomenon whereby famous men once rendered unemployable in show business due to a #MeToo campaign, but with no actual criminal conviction, sidle back into the limelight, testing the reaction, playing grandmother's...
You can already see a divide in the literature - positive stories about people with ALS or locked-in syndrome learning to use neural transmitters to control movement; negative stories about the threat of law enforcement "reading" our intentions before we do. It's the same tech, so what's the real story? - Three Quarks Daily
And those 17 movies — which include no less than Mystic River (with Sean Penn and Tim Robbins), Million Dollar Baby (Hilary Swank), and American Sniper (Bradley Cooper) — have earned a billion dollars or so all together, not to mention a few Oscars and plenty more nominations. Maybe not every one of the 39 films he's made over...
Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose Hamilton, filmed, made Disney+ a lot of money last year (and ensured musical theatre fans had something to watch over and over and over again while actual theatres were shuttered), says that he really wanted In the Heights to come out as scheduled. "I felt like I was back in my 20s — ‘No, please, let’s...
"The Internet's favorite catalog of weird places" (as the headline fittingly describes it) is going through what it's calling (for lack of a term that's both better and more timely) a "decolonization project" — reviewing its thousands of listings and hundreds of articles to include the roles and viewpoints of Black, indigenous, and and other Americans traditionally overlooked. But,...
" sent in 250 National Guard troops and 60 police officers Monday to seize land next to the pre-Hispanic ruins of Teotihuacán where authorities have said bulldozers were destroying outlying parts of the archaeological site. … Officials reported last week that they had been trying since March to halt the private construction project, but work continued on what local...
