Katy Waldman: “The prefix we use to talk about human efforts to interfere with nature flips between ‘funny’ and ‘scary’ with ease. Like Shelley’s monster himself, an ungainly patchwork of salvaged parts, it can seem goofy until it doesn’t – until it taps into an abiding anxiety that technology raises in us, a fear of overstepping.”
Anonymous Woman Playwright Writes Solo Show About Her Sex Life, And Male Comedians Perform It Sight Unseen
Says the unknown author of Manwatching, “When the idea of it being [performed by] an unprepared man came up, I liked that power dynamic and the act of trust it would require from a man. … An anonymous female voice makes the message so much stronger, and means that any woman who wants to take ownership of it can.” (Her favorite bit of speculation about her identity: “Someone guessed that David Hare wrote it … It’s very funny how quick we are to assume that men wrote everything.”)
Preserving Native Alaskan Culture Via Video Game
“[An Inuit tribe in Barrow] worked with a New York-based company called E-Line to create a game based on an old Iñupiat tale called ‘Kunuuksaayuka,’ in which an Iñupiat child travels across the wilderness to find the source of the bitter blizzards that have been hitting his village. … The resulting game is called Never Alone,” and its protagonist is now a girl. (video)
‘Keeping God Out Of The Gallery’: Does The Contemporary Art World Discriminate Against Overtly Religious Work?
Says one Christian artist, “One major Washington [D.C.] dealer said to me, ‘Ed, I’ve liked your work for years, but I don’t want to mark my gallery with your subject matter.'” Says another, whose work treats Judaic themes, “I’ve been told by dealers all the time, ‘I don’t want that crap in my gallery.'” And the reason may not be outright prejudice so much as a particular, now-standard ideal of what new art is and isn’t supposed to be.
Online Startup Artspace Lays Off Three-Quarters Of Its Staff
“Artspace, a startup that launched in 2011 with the aim of facilitating online sales for galleries and nonprofits, will part with the bulk of its staffers,” particularly on the editorial side.
The Neuroscience Of Willpower
“It’s the rare neuroscience finding that’s immediately applicable to everyday life: By knowing the way the brain is disposed to behaving or misbehaving in accordance to your goals, it’s easier to get the results you’re looking for, whether it’s avoiding the temptation of chocolate cookies or the pull of darkly ruminative thoughts.”
Merce Cunningham’s Company May Be Dead, But His Dances Live On (And On)
“Since Cunningham revivals largely depend on dancers’ understanding of his style, the disbanding of the company [at the end of 2011] seemed like a farewell to Cunningham dance theater. The End. But … a Cunningham diaspora has now emerged. Former dancers teach his technique in America, Britain, France and elsewhere. Exciting young Cunningham dancers have surfaced. Important revivals of a large number of his works have occurred in several countries.”
A New Wave Of Arts Critic Cuts At Newspapers
“Critics at newspapers are dying off even faster than print journalism. Theatre critics, film reviewers, A&E editors, and arts writers of every kind have been stripped from dailies and weeklies around the country.”
The Unlikable Author (Women Don’t Have The Luxury)
“I’ve worked in and around publishing for almost 15 years now; I’ve met countless male writers who are socially careless or even blatantly offensive and who suffer zero professional censure for it. But women don’t often get the luxury of acting that way, not if they want their careers to grow.”
Of Course The Rockettes Should Dance In The Inauguration And Make A Powerful Statement
Someone’s got to heal this divided citizenry. Dance can do this and a nationally televised show presents an ideal platform. The Rockettes shouldn’t perform for Trump (like my friend was forced to dance for Putin), but rather for his supporters. That said, no artist should ever be asked to “tolerate intolerance”; they have a responsibility to challenge it.
A Long, Intense And Interrupted Conversation In Jazz In Cuba
“Since the U.S. embargo of Cuba began in 1962, the ability of Cuban and American musicians to travel back and forth has shifted with the political winds. The late ’70s saw a brief but notable loosening of tensions. In 1985, President Reagan took a hard line. In the late ’90s, under Clinton, the doors opened again, especially for artists, to encourage “people-to-people exchange.” George W. Bush reversed that policy. Following a memorable December 2003 engagement by Chucho Valdés at Manhattan’s Village Vanguard jazz club, no other musician living in Cuba played in the U.S. until 2009, when the Obama administration began loosening travel restrictions.”
What Can We Learn About Race And Money From Some New TV Shows?
Shows like “Atlanta” and “Insecure” show how middle-class African Americans are feeling about economic security – that is, that there isn’t any. “These sitcoms remind us of the centrality of race, not just to our conversations but to policies around income inequality.”
The Demise Of Reading Has Been Greatly Exaggerated, Gallup Says
Sure, 16% of the people polled read no books in the past year, but the numbers of people reading is barely down from 2002, before smartphones, Twitter and Facebook.
Restoring A Millennia-Old Repository Of Rome’s Jewish History, At Long Last
A budget allocation, meant to restore the catacombs of Jewish residents of Rome from more than two millennia ago, has finally been realized, 10 years after it was first approved. “One of the grander niches has small columns at each corner and a frescoed cross vault with a depiction of a menorah. There are images of sacred Jewish symbols, including an ark with the scrolls of the Torah, and several inscriptions referring to synagogues in the city.”
Who Will Win – And Who Should Win – At The Golden Globes?
The low-down on La La Land, Manchester By the Sea, Moonlight, Arrival, and so. much. more. Despite his prediction that Manchester WILL win best drama, this critic says, “a win for Moonlight would certainly be a satisfying rebuke to the new fashion for crude and ugly reactionary politics – and a vote for humanity.”
How To Sound Book-Smart At Your Golden Globes Viewing Party Tonight
We can’t say it better than this: “If you happen to be attending a Golden Globes party with a bunch of book people (or just want to snob up the room a bit), here’s what you need to know, from the literary origins of the nominees to a few frankly outrageous literary snubs. Add a stiff drink, and you’re good to go.”
Looking At The Entirety Of Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s Career, Through The Recordings
James Oestreich: “Neither a composer himself nor active in contemporary music, he was as radically fixated on the musical past as Mr. Boulez was on the future. Yet he exerted a powerful influence on the present, having helped to negotiate a fruitful truce between mainstream practice and the early-music movement with his historically informed performances. The evidence lives in his recordings, said to number more than 500.”
Nat Henthoff, Jazz Critic, First Amendment Defender, And Author, Has Died At 91
The longtime Village Voice writer earned this glorious paragraph in his NYT obit: “The Hentoff bibliotheca reads almost like an anthology: works by a jazz aficionado, a mystery writer, an eyewitness to history, an educational reformer, a political agitator, a foe of censors, a social critic. He was, indeed, like the jazz he loved — given to improvisations and permutations, a composer-performer who lived comfortably with his contradictions, though adversaries called him shallow and unscrupulous, and even his admirers sometimes found him infuriating, unrealistic and stubborn.”
Amazon’s ‘No Cashier’ Bookstore Has Humans Watching From Behind The Scenes
Sure, you can just pick up stuff – sandwiches, drinks, er, books – and walk out, as long as you have the app. And the store is supposed to “see” what you picked up. But sometimes it can’t, so “Amazon staff is asked to help out when the system used in the new Amazon Go store can’t make a determination.”
New York’s Municipal Art Society Suddenly Ousts Its New President
Is money involved? Perhaps.
Should The City Of Prague Take Alphonse Mucha’s Epic Painting Cycle On Tour?
His grandson says no – and sues the city to stop the loan to a museum in Tokyo. “Prof. Karel Stretti, who leads the restoration department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, said the largest of the ‘Slav Epic’ pieces measures 26.5 feet by 20 feet, meaning handlers would have to remove it from its frame and roll it up, which could crack the paint.”
The Woman Who Played The Quiet, Determined Mildred Loving Says That Court Decision Is Every American’s History
The film Loving, about the court decision that struck down anti-micegenation laws in the United States, stars Ethiopian actor Ruth Negga, who says, “People like Richard and Mildred often are one of many untold stories. And we have a duty to revisit these stories and share them.”
What’s Better: Beating Temptation, Or Never Feeling That Temptation To Begin With?
A study involving 250 children and 400 adults finds that children aged 3-8 believe one side is better, while anyone older than 8 – but especially adults – has exactly the opposite conclusion.
Smithsonian Visitors Top 30 Million In 2016, Thanks To Reopened Renwick And New Museum Of African American History
But despite the great numbers – the best total since 2012 – the numbers for visits to about half of the Smithsonian Museums were down from 2015.
How The U.S. Got A New ‘One Day At A Time’
The showrunner for the new Netflix-owned-and-produced comedy says, “I knew that I wanted to write something personal, I knew I wanted to write a multi-cam, and no joke, the first phone call I got was, ‘Hey, Norman Lear wants to sit down and talk about doing a remake of One Day at a Time.’ Yeah, the stars aligned.”