“Located … in Skokie, about 20 miles northwest of the Loop, the [Illinois] Holocaust Museum is not exactly on Chicago tourism’s well-worn path. Yet it’s the third-largest of its kind in the world.” Says the museums VP of marketing, “We’re trying to move people from ‘something I’ve been meaning to do’ and always give them a reason to go.” And yes, the exhibit in question does have a Holocaust connection.
Maggie Roche, 65, Singer-Songwriter Of The Roches
“On albums from the early 1970s into the 2000s, … [she] developed a pop-folk songwriting style that could be droll or diaristic, full of unexpected melodic turns and often inseparable from the way the sisters’ voices harmonized and diverged.”
How Technology Will Change Us (Literally)
“For tens of thousands of years, technology has been directed outward—on the world at large. Now, for the first time in human history, technology has reached a point where it can be directed inward—back on its creators. Technology has found something new it would like to change: Us.”
Eugene Opera Suspends Current Season, Tries ‘Town Halls’ To Figure Out What’s Next
“The Eugene Opera completed two of its four planned productions for what was billed as its 40th anniversary season. … The remainder of the season — ‘West Side Story,’ planned for March, and ‘La Tragedie de Carmen,’ planned for May — have been canceled.”
Indie Movie Theatres Are Somehow Having A Cultural Revival
Frankly, it’s a bit surprising, but here’s the deal: “From themed weddings to live-streamed operas and interactive movie nights, indie theatres are reinventing themselves as the new entertainment hubs on the high street – eating into the market share of the multiplex giants and in-home rivals such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.”
When A Writer Says She Wants To Be Famous, The Lit World Has Questions
Ottessa Moshfegh: “I think that’s what I’m interested in, this question of whether or not we are allowed to be other people. Are we allowed to change? Do we give ourselves permission to grow? Are we even capable of making those kinds of decisions? Is there a will, or are we just being pushed around by our own personalities, just fucked to be who we are?”
Former AFTRA Retirement Fund Exec Arrested For Stealing $3.4 Million
Wow: “The U.S. Dept. of Justice alleged that [Enrico] Rubano and [Shivanand] Maharaj allegedly used companies they owned or controlled to submit invoices to the AFTRA Retirement Fund for information technology services that they did not perform. The scam resulted in Rubano and Maharaj taking about $3.4 million from the scheme from 2009 to 2015.”
Some Artists On The (Humongous) Los Angeles Women’s March
Catherine Opie sums it up for some of the artists who joined the estimated 750,000 people marching and protesting on Saturday: “Artists need to bring that voice of opposition to this cause — with every drop of blood and every tear.”
How Can Theatre Lead The Way Forward In 2017?
It’s time for a lot more documentary theatre. “Every human being is specific and we must tell stories that acknowledge and celebrate this inimitability. Specificity is our only hope to connect, co-exist, and break down the barriers that we believe divide us.”
How Los Angeles’ Immense Women’s March Showed (Off) City Planning In Entirely New Ways
Grand Park could handle the numbers, while Pershing Square … let’s just say it had some issues. And don’t ask about intersections: “This was a sign, perhaps, that the size of the march had caught the Los Angeles Police Department and other officials by surprise; otherwise this intersection would have been closed to cars far earlier.”
The Internet Of Things Is Coming For Humanity
Take a hint from the art of the Moche people: “Order gives way to chaos. The internet of things turns on its makers.”
The Four-Year Livestream To Protest The New President
Shia LaBeouf, actor and artist, “has created a new interactive performance, which asks passersby at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York to stand in front of a camera (available 24/7) and say, ‘He will not divide us.'” It lasts for four years – “or the duration of the presidency.”
The America We All – But Especially Historians And Novelists – Lost When Trump Took The Presidency
All U.S. writers were American exceptionalists, even when they wrote about the terrible things the U.S. has done and is doing. “But that was in a greater cause, too. The absolute conviction, in the end, that I, too, was caught up in the great work; that I was helping us to get to some higher place and fulfill our promise.” And yet no.