“It’s not really polite to tell other writers they’re bad writers, because they tend to fling it back to you. In response, I would say he’s a clunky, self-indulgent writer … His books are all very long and baggy. They’re about his interpretation of Dylan songs … and it’s incredibly boring.” - The Guardian
And would a penny per stream be a little more fair? After all, "Spotify increasing royalties to a penny per stream would send a clear, graspable message to its subscribers that it values the artists who serve as the foundation of the company. It would also bring Spotify in line with competitors Apple, Amazon Music and Tidal." - Los...
It's not the 1960s anymore (not by a long shot), so actors usually don't play drunk by getting drunk. Instead, consider Aubrey Plaza's technique for her movie Black Bear. "Acting drunk when you’re sober is no easier than acting sober when you’re drunk. To get into the right frame of unsteadiness, Plaza would spin round until almost throwing up...
Well, it's obvious, right? The New York governor "is currently resisting calls to resign over allegations of sexual harassment. So what better way to prove that he is definitely not a phallocratic bully than to 'ram through,' as one outlet puts it, a super-tall tower called Penn 15, and a vast development around it?" - The Observer (UK)
In 2020, after the death of George Floyd at the knee of police officer Derek Chauvin, "a team of researchers from the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis launched the George Floyd and Anti-Racist Street Art database to record and map anti-racist street art in the wake of Floyd’s murder. Crowdsourced through an online submission form, the database now includes more than...
Ironically, bringing audiences back may be the issue. "While this year looks fairly stable, a greater threat may still lie ahead. The emergency infusions of cash that kept so many companies afloat — as well as savings from furloughs and shifting artistic output online — will trickle away once they start staging shows again for live audiences, which could...
One of the big literary events of last week? The cover reveal for Sally Rooney's new novel. "In recent years, book cover design has taken on a higher profile, and we may be seeing a new heyday for book design. It was Rooney’s 2018 novel Normal People that Arter believes signalled the shift towards the book cover as a 'cultural phenomenon...
Michael McClure's final editor, Garrett Caples: "As any editor can tell you, turning a manuscript into a book is an affair in itself. Michael’s poetry is not easy to lay out. It’s always centered on the page, but only sometimes dead-centered, where you can just press a button and you’re fine. Often enough, he centered by hand and eye,...
Prisant was a 51-year-old antiques dealer with no professional experience writing when she wrote to the autocratic editor of the British magazine The World of Interiors, asking for a job. There wasn't one open in New York, but the editor created one for her. "'She told the truth, but always with subtlety and lashings of wit,' Rupert Thomas, Ms....
If you want to know how young people are experiencing the pandemic, the assault on the Capitol Building in January, vaccinations, and more, what better to do than ask? A project called Dispatches from Quarantine "launched in April 2020, and those questions were explored and answered through all sorts of mediums — like the stringing of words, the strokes of...
Kaluuya grew up on a council estate - the rough equivalent to "the projects" in the United States - the son of Ugandan immigrants to Britain. He took advantage of every possible free arts program, and, at 18, ended up bot a writer and an actor for the program Skins. And, years later, came Get Out. "By the time...
This doesn't seem like a great idea, but then again, who asked the audience? "Items can be digitally added to almost any movie or TV show. For example, advertisers could put new labels on the champagne bottles in Rick's Cafe in Casablanca, add different background neon advertising signs to Ocean's 11, or get Charlie Chaplin to promote a fizzy...
Artist Kenneth Tam started to keep a spreadsheet as microaggressions arose at the beginning of the pandemic. Then the micro became far too macro. "The rise of racist attacks, some of them horrifyingly lethal, has galvanized Asian-American artists around the country. They are leveraging social media to raise awareness, gathering to protest despite the pandemic precautions, making new work, and...
A rock wall, and a water feature as well, to be precise. "This is a debate in which everyone is a little right, and a little wrong, and this kind of argument can take a deceptively large toll on collective goodwill. The Cultural Landscape Foundation is an enormously valuable group when it comes to educating the public about mid-century...
Not great: "Broadway producers I spoke to told me that Rudin seems to be sincere about stepping away from the day-to-day running of his megahits, The Book of Mormon and To Kill a Mockingbird, but no one seems to think he’ll be relinquishing his financial stakes. When Broadway resumes, so will his revenue streams." What can Broadway, and Hollywood, do? - Los Angeles...
